' UC-",^.^' 




Class 
Book, 






©^efcr)GS iroir) Iqc l\orr)ar)ce 



ilMERICAN HiSTDRY; 



DEDICATED TO 

MRS. MARY CURTISS, 

Who graduated when seventy-two years of age in 
the class of 1 883, of the 

CHAUTAUgUA . 

LITERARY AND 

SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE 



6> 



Mn\i Btxtti Jictljobist Orpiscojjal C^urtb, 

JEFFERSDNVILLE, INC. 

BY HER SON, AND THE FIKST LEADER OF THE CIRCLE, 

GEO. l:'curtiss, d. d. 




Copyright April 3, 1885. 



SKETCHES FROM THE ROMANCE OF AMER- 
ICAN HISTORY— LA SALLE, THE EX- 
PLORER OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 

One of the world's most beautiful riv- 
ers is the Mississippi, rightly named by 
the Indians, the " Father of Waters." 
Rising far away to the north in the 
cl^r and beautiful lake Itasca, it takea 
its southernly course through the great 
American continent, receiving more than 
a thousand tributaries, great and small, 
some of which are of themselves rivers 
of magnificent proportion, until at last 
it pours its ceaseless flood through three 
great mouths, in an increasing delta, into 
the Gulf of Mexico. In its length of 
over three thousand miles, it rises until 
its mouth is nearly four miles higher 
than its source, and the water actually 
flows up hill, during all its course, 
with a velocity of several miles per 
hour. Were the earih for any time 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 



to stop its revolutions, the flood, now go- 
ing gulfward, would begin its reversed 
■course towards the source. 

It is a question, as yet unsettled, as to 
who was the first white man to lay eyes 
upon this magnificent stream. It is re- 
lated that two ardent French priests, 
missionaries, in 1673, left their infant 
mission station in Michigan, and as 
•cended the Fox river to its head waters, 
and carrying their light canoe, made a 
crossing of the western watershed, and 
<;ame to the Wisconsin river. On this 
new and unknown stream they launched 
their frail bark, and floated down its wa- 
ters for seven days, when they came into 
the beautiful Mississippi. Charmed with 
the scenery, and surprised to behold so 
magnificent a river, outrivaling anything 
they had seen in Europe, and hoping to 
find an outlet to the Pacific, they contin- 
ued down this rolling tide, passing the 
mouths of the Missouri and Ohio, and 
for thirty days holding on their course, 
passed blufls and shores covered with 
•extensive forests, with here and there 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 



vast open places free from timber, 
but covered with grass, on which roamed 
vast herds of buffalo and deer, and over 
which flew birds of beautiful plumage 
and sweet song. They could not but be 
greatly impressed with the varied scenery 
of this remarkable new-found river, and 
continued to the mouth of the Arkansas, 
where, being discouraged at not finding 
an end to the river or a way to the 
Pacific, they turned back and painfully 
labored up stream. After painful labor 
these voyagers entered the mouth of the 
Illinois river, and ascended the stream 
as far as possible, and crossed the coun- 
try to Detroit. 

The determination of the mouth of 
the Mississippi, as a great geographical 
problem of that day, was left to another 
daring and enterprising Frenchman, 
whose romantic life was crowned by a 
tragic death in the valley of the great 
river, whose exploration was destined to 
make his name illustrious. 

Robert Cavelier de La Salle was a 
Frenchman, born in Rouen November. 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 



1643. His family was respectable, in 
comfortable circumstances, and he be- 
■came the happy possessor of a comforta- 
ble patrimony. Becoming early in life a 
priest, he forfeited his patrimony, and de- 
scended to the scale of a poor man Be 
coming weary of the restraint of monas 
tic cowls, and panting for a wider scope 
for his struggling genius, in 1666, he with 
drew from the order, and became a lay- 
man in the Komish church. Soon after 
ward, impelled by a spirit of adventure, 
he came to Canada, then a French pos- 
session, and settled at Montreal. His 
brother Jean was a member of the Sulpi- 
cians, an order of the Cd,tholic church, 
who owned an inland. A grant of land 
was made to Robert, and he founded 
thereon LaChine. 

The wandering, restless spirit of La 
Salle would not permit him to rest for 
any considerable time. So, in 1669, hav- 
ing sold his possessions at LaChine he 
started on an exploring expedition, ac- 
companied by two Sulpician brothers, 
Carson and Galinee. They parted com- 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 



pany, however, upon reaching the Sen- 
eca country, near the head of Lake On- 
tario, on the Canada side. LaSalle re- 
turned to the Iroquois country, and di- 
rected his steps southward through the 
forests and down small streams until he 
reached the upper waters of the Ohio 
river. On this he set sail in a canoe, and 
floated down the LaBelle to the falls of 
the Ohio, where Jeffersonville and Louis- 
ville now are built on either side. Noth- 
ing came of this line of exploration, and 
it seems to have been forgotten in the 
brilliant discoveries of succeeding years. 
About this time Frontenac established 
a strong Fort on Qainta bay, and called 
it by his name. In 1674, LaSalle, having 
commendatory letters from Governor 
^General Colbert, visited France to peti- 
tion for certain rights and privileges. 
Being master of language, and skillful 
in presenting his case, he was received 
with unusual favor. The king ennobled 
him and rewarded him with a " grant of 
Fort Frontenac and adjacent lands, and 
made him governor of the Fort and set- 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 



tlement on the l^ith day of May, 1675." 
Returning to the New Continent, thi& 
intrepid explorer took possession of his 
Fort, and began to exercise authority. 
The first fort was built of timber, but he 
rebuilt it of cut stone, which gave it the 
appearance of unusual strength. French- 
men and Indians were gathered into this 
settlement, and soon it bore the appear- 
ance of a busy, thriving village. As soon 
as he could bring it about, he built four 
vessels to sail on the lake, and Fort 
Fron i en ac became the center of the far 
trade for the West, dividing Canada be- 
tween two great '• antagonistic organiza- 
tions," each striving by all means to sup- 
plant the other, and create a monopoly iit. 
furs. 

LaSalle was able to hold his own with 
the Eastern Company as long as he re- 
mained at home, and in charge of affairs, 
as the moving spirit. The spirit of ex- 
ploration which had ever characterized 
this more than ordinary mind, and a de- 
sire to find a way to the Pacific ocean, 
and so to the India, led him to visit 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 9^ 



France in 1678. At this visit he "ob- 
tained permission to carry on western ex- 
plorations for five years, build and hold 
forts, and enjoy a monopoly of the trade 
in buffalo skins, but was expressly for- 
bidden to trade with the Ottawa or 
other lake tribes who had been accus- 
tomed to bring furs to Montreal." One 
would have supposed with this liberal 
grant, and a commission confirming un- 
limited authority, LaSalle would have 
been content. 

Having enlisted an " Italian veteran," 
named Tonty, and "thirty mpchanics 
and mariners," he sailed, July 14 1675, 
from LaRochelle for the New World. 
Having reached Fort Frontenac, he sent 
Tonty up the Niagara, where he estab- 
lished a fort. Making friends with the 
Seneca Indians, who held this region, 
Tonty began building a vessel of fifty five 
tons at the mouth of the Cayuga creek, 
where it empties into the Niagara, above 
the great falls. The vessel was named the 
Griffon, and was launched in 1679. 

On board of this, the largest vessel 



10 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



whose prow had parted the waters of the 
great American Lakes, LaSalle, accom- 
panied by two Franciscan Friars, sailed 
the length of the lakes Erie, St. Clair 
and Huron, and down Lake Michigan to 
Green Bay. Here he purchased a cargo of 
furs, and sent the Griffon back to its 
home post, while he and his party, in 
canoes, ventured around the lake to the 
mouth of the St. Joseph's river. Here 
they tarried long enough to build a trad- 
ing post and a fort, which received the 
name of Fort Miami. Ascending the St. 
Joseph's river into Michigan and North- 
ern Indiana, they carried their canoes 
acros3 the watershed to the Kankakee, 
on which they floated down to an Indian 
village in Hlinois, near the present city 
-of Peoria. By kindness LaSalle formed 
-an alliance with the Indians, and built a 
fort in January, 1680, which he called Fort 
Crivoccceur. 

At this place disaster double-handed 
overtook the brave explorer, which com- 
pelled him to place the fort in the hands 
of Tonty, sending Acau and Father 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 11 

Hennepin to explore ihe Illinois river to 
its mouth. LiSalle, with five compan- 
ions, started across the country to reach 
Fort Frontenac, in Canada, a thousand 
miles away. The journey was largely 
through unbroken forests, among wild 
beasts of prey and savage Indians, with 
scanty food, subsisting on whatever might 
be found on the way. None but brave 
men would have dared to undertake so 
perilous a journey. But before the eye 
of LaSalle was the ever brilliant picture 
of an eastern country to be reached by 
way of the west. Gold, honor, luxury. 
«,nd a hope of a gratified ambition goaded 
him on. 

Having reached his fort at Niagara, 
LaSi.lie became satisfied that his ship, 
the Griffon, had either foundered in a 
lake-storm or in the night time was car- 
ried over the falls of Niagara and dashed 
to pieces and all lost. His cup of sorrow 
was not full until hearing that a vessel 
from France, laden with supplies for him 
and his expedition, had been lost at sea. 
He lamented but a brief period. Gath- 



12 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



ering together what he could of men and 
supplies, and providing for the govern- 
ment of his fort and trading posts in hi&^ 
absence, with a company of men he 
started for Fort Crivoccoeur, on the 
Illinois. 

On arriving at the fort, he found that 
the Iroquois Indians had become war-like 
and savage, and Tonty had abandoned 
the country and gone back to Green Bay. 

Nothing daunted, LaSalle built a good 
sized boat and launched it on the Illinois^ 
and early in 1682 started, with a small 
crew on what proved to be "one of the 
grandest exploits of modern times."^ 
Sailing down the Mississippi, the hero, 
and moving spirit of the expedition, 
standing in the bow, or sitting amidships 
of his little craft, with an eagle eye sur- 
veyed the river and its banks, taking in 
the immense forests at certain points, 
and great plains at others, seeing here 
and there the wild red men, who owned 
forests and field and disputed the posses- 
sion of the palefaces, little dreaming 
that in two hundred years this great 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 13 



Mississippi valley would team with a pop- 
ulation amounting to millions, and hold- 
ing cities rivaling anything he had seen 
in Europe. Continuing down the river, 
his little boat, holding but a few men, 
was but a pigmy beside the floating 
palaces afterward destined to plow the 
bosom of the great Father of Waters. 

LaSalle made but few landings, but 
<;ontinued on until the waters of the 
river divided into three channels. These 
he explored successively to the Gulf. On 
the 9ih of April, 1682, this loyal French- 
man took possession of the Mississippi 
Delta and the contiguous country, in the 
name of the King of France, and " set 
Tjp a column with the French arms at 
the mouth of the river," and this became 
^ew France. 

Realizing that he had made a valuable 
discovery, LaSalle retraced his course, 
ascending the river to the mouth of the 
Illinois, where he founded and built Fort 
St. Louis, at Starved Rocks. Leaving 
his faithful Italian, Tonty, in command 
of his western possessions, LaSalle 



14 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



started for Quebec, and sailed for France 
to report to King and Court what he had 
found. France was greatly excited by 
these discoveries. Companies were form- 
ed for colonizing the Mississippi country. 
These plans took on the gigantic in char- 
acter, and had they been carefully exe- 
cuted it would have been but a question 
of time as to the vast population of 
French people in this New France. It 
was also proposed to make the new set- 
tlement the objective point for corquer- 
ing the New Biscay country and North- 
ern Mexico. 

L'iSalle received a commission, April 
14, 1684, appointing him commandant of 
all the country from Fort St. Louis to the 
New Biscay. This territory was in itself 
a vast empire, and if his plans could be 
carried out, LaSalle would be little short 
of a great monarch. 

Gathering an expedition of two hun- 
dred and eighty men and four ships, un- 
der Beaujeu as naval officer in command, 
he sailed, August 1st, from Rochefort 
bound for the New World and the settle- 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 15- 



meni of the Mississippi. Beaujeu 
proved to be an unwise, headstrong 
officer, who deteimined not to listen to 
the orders or counsels of the chief in 
command, LaSalle. Missing the mouth 
of the Mississippi, they sailed on to land 
his colonists in Metagorda bay, where he 
built a fort, calling it St. Louis. The 
store-ship, Amiable, either accidently or 
designedly, was wrecked on an island in 
the entrance to the bay. Since nearly 
all the munitions of war and provisions 
were on this ship, its loss was an over- 
whelming calamity. If all the men had 
proven true this might have been over- 
come to some extent. But the infamous 
Beaujeu sailed away with two vessels, 
leaving the little Belle, a present from 
the French King to the Governor and 
his colonists. 

The Indians became hostile, and the 
attempts to cultivate the land were abor- 
tive. Settlers perished of disease. 
Some were killed by the Indians. Their 
ranks were daily diminished. Disaster 
increased. LaSalle went out on many 



16 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



expeditions, losing both time and money 
to no avail, until the ship Belle was 
wrecked. This drove the colonists to 
desperation. 

In January, 1687, reduced to less than 
forty persons, leaving onehalf at the 
fort, including the women and children, he 
took the remainder, including his 
brother, "nephews, Joutel and twelve 
others," and set out over land for the 
country of the Illinois. The wanderers 
penetrated the wilderness noithward 
sixty days, and were in the basin of the Col- 
orado. Their trials and hardships can 
not be described. A dissention arose in 
the camp, and the threatened revolt broke 
out March 20th, while on the banks of 
Trinity river. Duhaut and Larchevegue 
killed Morauget, a nephew of LaSalle. 
The commander turned back to look for 
his nephew. These insurgents hid in 
the tall grass until he passed, when ris- 
ing up, one took deadly aim, and shot 
LaSalle dead in his tracks. While look- 
ing at the dead body, one cried out: 



AMERICAN HISTORY. li 

" There, you grand bashaw, there you 
are ! " 

The death of LaSalle occurred when 
he had reached the forty-fourth year of 
his age, just in the prime of life, and be- 
fore ht had been able to enjoy material 
advantages of his great discoveries. He 
was a man of indomitable will, great 
courage, a lover of adventure, desiring 
to look into mysteries hidden from sight, 
and capable of great endurance. While 
strong in purpose, we have no evidence 
that he was vain. He was a good Gov- 
ernor, though not so excellent as an or- 
ganizer. While he could handle men 
when selected, he could not so judiciously 
select men to engage with him in enter- 
prises requiring the best of material. 
Though untimely, yea, cowardly killed, 
and resting in an unknown grave in the 
Mississippi valley, his name will be 
kindly remembered in connection with 
the great Mississippi river, the world re- 
nowned Father of Waters, while "gras« 
grows and water runs." 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

A^'D THE 

NEW WORLD. 



For forty-five centuries the two oceans, 
the Atlantic and Pacific, washed the 
shores of two vast continents situate be- 
tween them, and yet the civilized world 
was ignorant of their existance. On these 
continents was every shade of climate, 
vast plains, and towering mountains, 
long rivers and ocean like lakes, valleys 
fertile as a garden, and forests full of 
game, waving grass, and blooming flowers 
shedding their fragrance on desert waste. 
By some means — when, or how, no body 
knows — these continents were peopled by 
wandering or lost families, who, having 
once wandered to these shores, were un- 
able to escape. This race, bearing marks 



22 AMERICAN HISTORY, 



of Grecian or Phoenician origin, multi- 
plied in numbers, built cities, erected 
governments, provided defences, culti- 
vated vast fields, built rude alters and 
temples, and worshiped a deity. Being 
isolated from their early home, they 
changed very little from what they were 
when first they came. 

This race was succeeded by another, of 
a copper color, wild and roving, cruel 
and blood-thirsty, destitute of even the 
arts possessed by the race they succeeded, 
and lived as roving nomadic tribes. The 
earlier race becoming extinct, their cities 
and temples crumbled to ruins. The red 
men knew nothing of these people. 
Vast trees grew on their works, showing 
that a long period of time had passed since 
they were built and inhabited. 

It is only three hundred and ninety- 
two years since a man of civilized Europe, 
after carefully studying the ocean charts 
as far as known, and the phenomena of 
time, concluded the earth was round, and 
by sailing in a continuous westerly course, 
he would reach the other side of the 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 23 



world, which would be the " India," After 
trials, vexations, delays, and innumerable 
hinderances, which would have appalled 
a less courageous man, this intrepid 
mariner accomplished his object, in one 
respect — finding land to the westward, 
but failed in another — for the land found 
was not India. 

The romance of this navigator's life we 
seek to tell. 

Christopher Columbus, the discoverer 
of the new world, was a Genoese by 
birth. The date of his worldly advent is 
80 uncertain that he may have been born 
either in 1436, or in 1446, since both 
dates fulfill the conditions mentioned by 
dijBferent historians. His musical Italian 
name of Colombo was Latinized into 
Cristoboro Columbus, which, on entering 
the Spanish service, he again changed 
to Cristobal Colon. His father, Domenio 
Colombo, was a wool-comber in Genoa, 
and a man of some local importance. 
Columbus was the eldest of three sons 
and a daughter. 

Since the importance of the work of 



24 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



Columbus has been conceded, many 
stories concerning his boyhood have been 
found, and set afloat in literature, but it 
is conceded that most of them are with- 
out foundation, or based on facts so slight 
as to be unworthy of credence. 

The disposition of Columbus to follow 
the sea early evinced itself His father, 
with remarkable judgment, directed his 
education so as to fit him for a life on the 
sea. At that time, the Mediterranean 
was the great thoroughfare of the civi- 
lized world. All the culture and art 
clustered around this great inland ocean. 
There were some daring navigators who 
went beyond the pillars of Hercules, and 
traced the boundless Atlantic. Columbus 
studied Latin and drawing at Genoa. 
But, at the University of Paris, he 
" studied geometry, geography, astronomy, 
and navigation." Before entering upon 
his life-work, he spent some time at the 
trade of wool-combing with his father. 

Dates disagree as to when Columbus 
entered the Genoese service, some say- 
ing he was fourteen years old, while 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 25 



others place it as late as twenty-four. Of 
his life on the Mediterranean, we pass 
over, and come to his first attempt to 
interest some strong power in his scheme 
to discover a new way across the ocean to 
Asia. 

Columbus left his native city to make 
his home in Lisbon about 1470. Portugal, 
from its extensive ocean coast line, pre- 
eented a favorable field in which to 
work out his plans of discovery. At Lis- 
bon, the heart of Columbus was con- 
quered by Dona Felipa, whom he mar- 
ried, and to whom was born Diego. 
Pedro Correo, a brotherin-law, was a 
navigator of merit, as was his wife's 
father, Bartolommeo Monis da Perestrello, 
an Italian. The associations of Columbus 
«,t this time were with the most learned 
and experienced navigators of the world. 
He carefully studied the "papers, charts, 
and journals of his father-in-law," con- 
versed extensively with learned men, 
And became fully convinced of the prac- 
ticability of sailing westward, and by so 
-doing, go around the world. 



26 AMERICAN HISTORY. 

Columbus did not jump at a conclusion 
that the earth was round, but, by a 
course of careful study, and logical rea- 
soning, he concluded what would be th© 
result from a westward sailing. Astron- 
omy had developed some new principles^ 
which to him seemed to necessitate a cir- 
cular earth. His son, Fernando, says his- 
father's theory "was founded upon the 
nature of things, the authority of learned 
writers, and the reports of navigators.'^ 
Ptolemy, the Egyptian, had made a 
globe centuries before, and declared that 
this was the form of the earth. Studying 
this,*^olumbus divided the earth from 
east to west at the equator into 24 hours^ 
of 15 degrees each, making the circum- 
ference of his theoretical earth 360 de- 
grees. Columbus became satisfied that 
the ancients measured 15 of these hours,, 
commencing at the easternmost point 
known in Asia, and going to the Canary 
Island in the west. Only recently the 
Portuguese navigators had extended the 
time one hour more by discovering the 
Cape Verde and Azore Islands. Now, 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 27 



since the world knew of 16 hours, only 8 
hours of the entire circumference of the 
globe remained to be accounted for. 
This space was the unknown and unex- 
plored. At about that time it was said 
that a Portuguese pilot had "taken from 
the water, 450 leagues west of Portugal, a 
piece of curiously carved wood." Huge 
trees had been washed ashore on the 
Azores. A piece of wood, carved in 
strange figures, "was seen on the Island 
of Porto Santo." " Two drowned men, 
of appearance unlike Europeans, had 
been found on the Island of Flores." It 
was the general belief that these all 
came from the west. 

How long Columbus was engaged in 
these studies can not be known, nor can 
we know all the steps in the investiga- 
tion which finally culminated in his 
great theory, but it is well known that he 
did arrive at the conclusion that the 
world is round, and by sailing westward, 
he would reach the shores of another 
land. 

During the next few years, Columbus 



28 AMERICAN HISTORY. 

engaged in perfecting his plans of dis- 
covery, and made several voyages. In 
1477, he sailed to the northwest, 100 
leagues beyond "the Island of Theele." 
This was probably Iceland. After this, 
he sailed down the African coast to San 
Jorge da Mina, in Guinea. 

The most discouraging period in the 
life of Columbus, was when he sought 
the aid of crowned heads to help him in 
his projected discoveries. Sovereigns 
had little faith in schemes, and less in 
schemers. 

To Genoa he first presented his cause, 
offering to his native Italy and its beauti- 
ful city the honor of being first in the 
discovery of a new world. But Genoa 
could not see a fortune in the fortunes of 
a fortuneless man, though he was one of 
her sons. 

It is believed that he applied to Al- 
fonso, of Portugal, before his death, but 
without avail. From Lisbon, Columbus 
went to Spain, accompanied by his 
son, Diego. This was about 1484. 
His wife had died, and his property was 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 29 



lost. His brother, Bartolommeo, had 
been sent by Columbus to apply 
for aid to the English King, which was 
also denied. Venice also, and Genoa 
a second time declined to give aid. By 
the Duke of Medina Celi he was favora- 
bly recommended to Queen Isabella. On 
her command, Columbus repaired to Cor- 
dova, and then followed the court to 
Salamanca, where he was introduced to 
King Ferdinand, by Mendoza, " Grand 
Cardinal " of Spain. The earnest navi- 
gator explained to king and court his 
plans and theories with a clearness and 
earnestness worthy of so great a cause. 
Ferdinand and Isabella heard Columbus 
with favor, and referred him to a " coun- 
sel of learned men, mostly ecclesiastics, 
under the presidency of the Queen's 
confessor." This council met at Sala- 
manca in the Dominican convent, San 
Estevan. The plans, charts, arguments 
and propositions of Columbus were met, 
not by science and facts, but Scripture 
texts. For seven years this earnest man 
sought aid from Ferdinand, but could ob- 



30 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



tain nothing decisive until 1491, when 
the conference decided " the project in 
question vain and impossible, and not be- 
coming great princes to engage in on 
such slender grounds as had been ad- 
duced." 

Discouraged, and believing that Spain 
would not extend aid, he immediately 
set out to present his project to Charles 
VIII, of France. On his way. almost 
famished, (some say his boy was the fam- 
ished one), he stopped at the gate of La 
Kabida, a Franciscan Monastery, and 
asked for bread and water. The prior of 
the convent was Juan Perez de Man- 
chona. In conversation with Columbus, 
the prior became greatly interested in 
the discovery of a new world. On con- 
sulting Garcia Fernandez, a physician, 
and Pinzon, a skillful navigator, the in- 
terest of the prior became enthusiasm, 
and he wrote about the matter to Queen 
Isabella, who immediately summoned 
Columbus to meet her at the camp of 
Santa Fe. Here he again explained his 
plans, and demanded certain things of 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 31 

the Queen, but the demands of the Arch- 
bishops of Granada were exhorbitant, 
and negotiations ceased. 

Columbus started again for France, 
and had already gone " two leagues from 
Granada" when a royal messenger came 
in great haste to bring him back. Queen 
Isabella, when the King would not help, 
said: "I undertake the enterprise for 
my own Crown of Castile, and will pledge 
my jewels to raise the necessary funds " 
It did not require long for Columbus and 
Queen Isabella to agree on terms and sign 
the agreement, which occurred April 17, 
1491. Arrangements for the voyage 
were made at Palos. Three ships were 
selected. The Santa Maria was the larg- 
est, being ninety feet keel, having a deck 
and four masts, two of which were square- 
rigged, and two with lateen sails, It car- 
ried on the forward deck, guns, eight 
anchors, and was manned with sixty-six 
seamen. The Pinta and Mina were ves- 
sels of very small size. The Santa Maria 
was commanded by Columbus. Two 
brothers, Alonzo and Yanez Pinzon, com- 



32 AMERICAN HISTORY. 

manded the smaller vessels. In all the 
ships there were one hundred and 
twenty souls, and provisions for one year. 

These ardent men confessed to Juan 
Perez before sailing, and were absolved 
from their sins. 

On the morning of Aug. 3, 1492, that 
little fleet sailed out of Palos harber, and 
turned their prows southwestward, on an 
expedition destined to be frought with 
the most important events to mankind 
since the rising of the Star of Bethleham. 

The fleet sailed first to the Canaries. 
Leaving these Sept. 6ih, they turned to 
the west and set sail to escape the too 
close proximity of some Portuguese men 
of war. Night came, and under its 
cover they escaped. After a days sail, 
many of the sailors began to feel their 
terrible loneliness, saying they should 
never see home again. Columbus calmed 
their fears, and cheered their hopes by 
skillfully picturing the land they should 
discover, its gold, its spices, its gorgeous 
apparel, picturing the glories of India. 

In the afternoon of Sept. 13th, Colum- 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 3:^ 

bus observed a variance of the magnetic 
needle which startled him, and terrified 
the sailors. Ready to meet emergencies, 
the hero of the voyage told them it was 
the influence of the " polar star." To 
avert trouble, Columbus kept two log 
books, one for himself, in which he ac- 
curately noted every event, and all the 
careful astronomical observations which 
he made every day with an astrolabe, 
and the other in such a manner as to 
quiet the fears of his men. As the sh'p? 
advanced into the great world of water, 
the sailors renewed their fears that they 
should never again see Spain. A meteor 
fell on the night of Sept. 15th, and 
struck the water only a few lengths 
ahead of the vessel. This added to the 
fears of the superstitious. Of the 16th 
of September Columbus wrote : " The 
air was so mild that it wanted but the 
song of the nightengale to make it like 
the month of April in Andalusia." 

At times they saw seaweeds floating in 
the ocean, and Alonzo Pinzon, whose 
vessel was ahead, said he saw so many 



34 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



Bigns of land that he expected to see it 
the next day. Matters moved on on 
board the little Spanish fl set. Sailors were 
angry, sailing masters doubtful, but Col- 
umbus standing firm, with a throbbing 
heart, anxious brow, and strong will, 
commanded all things to be quiet. On 
the 25th of September, while "Columbus 
was studying a chart in his cabin," the 
shrill voice of Martin Pinzon cried 
"Land!" It was but a moment for Col- 
umbus to gain the deck, and cast his eyes 
to the southwest, where about twenty- 
five leagues away lay what appeared 
land. The Gloria in Excelsia was sung. 
But the carnival of joy was short. Land 
was not there. The pilot had mistaken 
a cloud for land. 

On sailed the fleet until 707 leagues 
were measured from the Azores. On the 
7th of October the cry of land was again 
heard from the Mina, but this proved 
also a delusion. 

The crews of the vessels were just on 
the verge of a mutiny. They lacked a 
bold leader to head the bloody mob and 



AMERICAN HISTORY. SS' 



murder Columbus. Birds began to be 
seen, and the ships' course followed their 
flight to the W. S. W. At evening the 
course was again changed to west. On 
the 11th of October, at evening prayer, 
Columbus offered great prizes to the one 
who should first descry land. At about 
ten o'clock at night, while Columbus and 
others sat on his deck looking anxiously 
westward for signs of success, suddenly a 
light flashed across the water. One of 
his men saw it as Columbus did, but 
others did not catch a glimpse of it. 
Double watches were set. At two o'clock 
on Friday morning, Oct. 12, 1492, just 
seventy-one days from Palos, a gun was 
fired from the Pinta in token of land. 
•* Rodrigo Triana, a sailor on the Pinta, 
was the first who Faw the new world, and 
sounded the joyful word ' land.' " 

At morning's dawn a wooded island 
lay at a distance of two leagues. The 
natives were seen running about in great 
numbers, with the appearance of great ag- 
itation. Just at sunrise Columbus, bearing 
the royal standard of Spain, and the 



36 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



Pinzon brothers, "bearing each a flag 
with a green cross," were landed on the 
€ea-beach. Columbus was tirst to land. 
They knelt down reverently and kissed 
the ground, and devoutly thanked God 
for his merciful protection. Columbus 
<irew his sword, unfurled the banner of 
Spain, and took possession of the land 
in the name of the Crown of Castile. 
Humbolt, in Cosmos, says : " We 
must consider the wonderful concatena- 
tion of trivial circumstances which undeni- 
ably exercised an influence on the course 
ofthe world's destiny. * ^ ^ If Columbus 
had resisted the counsels of Martin Pin- 
aon, and continued to steer westward, he 
would have entered the gulf stream, and 
been borne to Florida, and from thence 
probably to Cape Hatteras and Virginia. 
A circumstance of incalculable import- 
fince, since it might have been the means 
of giving to the United States of North 
America a Catholic Spanish population 
in the place of the Protestant English 
one, of which these regions were subse- 
<juently colonied." 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 37 

It wa8 said by Moguer, an old sailor, 
that Pinzon shaped his course from seeing 
in the evening a flock of parrots flying 
to the southwest, as he believed, to roo3t 
on trees upon the land. " Never," says 
Humbolt, "has a flight of birds been at- 
tended by more important results. It 
may even be said that it has decided the 
first colonization in the new continent, 
and the original distribution of the Ro- 
man and Germanic races of men." 

The subsequent treatment of Colum- 
bus by the Spanish authorities was out- 
rageous. While, after two other voyages 
of discovery, he was engaged in his works 
of colonizing the new world, he was 
seized by Bobadilla, a Commissioner of 
Spain, loaded with chains, carried on 
board of a Spanish ship, and taken to 
Spain. On the vessel the officers offered 
to remove his fetters, but the old man of 
courage proudly replied : " I will wear 
them until they shall order them to be 
taken off, and I will preserve them after- 
ward as relics and memorials of the re- 
ward of my services." 



S8 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



On arriving in Spain, Ferdinand or- 
dered the chains removed, but the hatred 
of the courtiers followed him, and he 
never obtained redress. 

In 1502 Columbus vt^as sent on his last 
expedition, with four small vessels, to 
the Gulf of Mexico to find a passage to 
the eastern seas. He returned from the 
voyage in 1504, an old and broken down 
man, sick of fever, and broken in spirits. 
He wandered about for a short time having, 
as he said, " no place to repair to except 
an inn, and often nothing to pay for his 
sustenance." The final hour came at 
Valladolid to this brave old man, this 
discoverer of a new world, while attempt- 
ing to repeat, " Lord, into thy hands I 
commit my spirit." It occurred May 20, 
1506. 

Columbus was buried at Valladolid. 
Seven years later a marble tomb was 
placed over his remains with the inscrip- 
tion in Spanish : *' To Castile and Leon 
a new world gave Colon." 

His body was disinterred and placed 
in the Carthusian Monastery of Las 



AMERICAN HISTORY, 39 



Cueva. In 1536 the body was taken 
across the sea to Santo Domingo, and 
placed in a Cathedral. Here they re^ 
posed until 1796, when they, with great 
pomp, were borne to Havana. Cuba, and 
placed in the great Cathedral, where 
they are said to still remain. 

Columbus was a natural genius, to 
which he added great acquirements. He 
was " lofty, daring, and ambitious in de- 
sign, indomitable in conduct, moderate 
in success, undepressed in adversity, and 
in all, inbred with a spirit of devotion." 
His bearing marked a man of strong 
will, commanding respect. His great 
heart was generous and forgiving, but a 
wound cut to the quick. He lived a 
grand man, and died a benefactor to his 
race. He opened to the orient a new field 
upon which the genius of Europe and 
Asia might enter, and where the grandest 
triumphs of science, law, philosophy, art 
and religion might be obtained. It is 
impossible to describe the wonderful ad- 
vantages of the discovery of Christopher 
Columbus. The whole life of this re- 
markable Genoese was a romance. 



PHILIP, 

THE 

Red Hero of Massachusetts. 



When the white sons of Europe landed 
on the unexplored shores of the New 
World they found a people of an entirely 
different appearance from themselves, 
having strongly marked features, a 
dusky or copper colored skin, and a dis- 
position to resent the coming of the 
strangers. By the arbitrament of force 
these sons of the forest had arranged 
themselves into tribes and nations, with 
chiefs or kings, and councils for making 
their laws. These councils also acted as 
courts of justice to settle differences be- 
tween tribes and individuals. The sepa- 
ration into nations had become so mark- 
ed, and the lines so sharply drawn as to 



44 AMERICAN HISTORY. 

change the original Indian tongue into 
several different languages?, or possibly it 
would be correct to say, they had become 
marked and changed by many provincial- 
isms. 

Their languages were wholly unlike 
the cultured tongues of Europe, being 
about midway between a grunt and a 
gutteral, with now and then an explosive 
sound marking the accent. Proper 
names were often onomatopoetic, as is 
found in most of the languages of uncul- 
tured people, while their words of action 
were often descriptive of the act, rather 
than expressive of the action. 

These copper colored sons of the New 
World roamed at will over the hills, and 
through the dales, and in the deep for- 
ests of the land owned by their fathers, 
and held them without fear of disposses- 
sion. The birds and beasts of the land, 
and the fish in the rivers and lakes belong- 
ed to them, whose title was undisputed. 
They worshiped the Great Spirit, and 
prayed to devils, appeasing their wrath 
with offerings of corn and beans. Here 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 45 



they lived generation after generation in 
undisturbed enjoyment until the pale- 
faced strangers came across the wide wa- 
ters from an unknown country and claim- 
ed the land as their own by right of dis- 
covery. Then the Indian character de- 
veloped in lines it had not before known. 

It is a mistake to suppose that among 
these savages there were no kindly feel- 
ings, or exalted tastes, no real sympathy, 
or strong love, no giant minds, or broad 
views. AH of these were seen in marked 
characters. Bravery, courage, endurance, 
stolid indifference to pain or joy, and per- 
sonal prowess coupled with breadth of 
thought, were often found in many a wig- 
wam, and around many a council fire, 
where the pipe of peace was smoked, and 
the tomahawk of strife was buried. 

In 1662 died a noted New England In- 
dian, the venerable Sachem of the Wam- 
panagos, named Massasoit. He was a man 
of extraordinary powers, and of personal 
prowess. When the Plymouth colony, 
led by Miles Standish, in 1621, attempt- 
ed to make peace with the red men of the 



46 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



forests, Massasoit, then a young but com- 
manding Sachem, came to the council 
with a small band of his most trusted and 
noted warriors. Here he discussed with 
the pale-faced strangers the questions of 
peace and war, the ownership of the lands, 
and the right to sell. His rude oratory 
fiercely depicted the injustice of the 
stronger brother and the defenseless con- 
dition of the people. After a time Mas- 
sasoit and Governor Carver, while sur- 
rounded by their friends of both sides, 
smoked the pipe of peace, and then en- 
tered into a solemn treaty of peace and 
friendship with the colony, which was 
maintained for nearly forty years. This 
was the first great treaty made in New 
England, and was productive of incalcula- 
ble good, both to the settlers and Indians. 
While nine of the surrounding Sach- 
ems entered into the treaty, Canonicus, 
the Sachem of Massachusetts, was hostile 
to the whites. He sent to the governor 
"a bundle of arrows wrapped in the skin 
of a rattlesnake," as a delaration of war. 
The governor, not to be daunted, took the 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 47 



skin of the rattlesnake and, stuffing it 
with powder and ball, sent it back as a 
challenge to come on and fight, but the 
bold challenge was not accepted. Mas- 
sasoit remained true tohis treaty with Gov- 
€rnor Carver, but as the years passed the 
younger Sachems became dissatisfied, ha- 
tred toward the palefaces rankled in their 
bosoms, and murmurs increased among 
the tribes. The nations had sold their 
lands to the pale-faces, and signed their 
deeds. The price agreed upon had been 
fully paid, and squandered by the In- 
dians. The pale-faces had cultivated their 
lands and desired more. The red skins 
were gradually being crowded back, and 
in a few years would have neither lands 
nor wigwams. The young men longed to 
recover their lost forests and streams and 
the favorite hunting-grounds of their fa- 
thers. The longer they delayed the less 
hope there was that these could ever be 
recovered. With the death of the old 
warriors the young bloods became more 
defiant. As long as Massasoit lived he 
was able, by his commanding influence 



48 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



and great age, to restrain the younger 
men and prevent open conflict. When 
the old Sachem died the fire of a fierce 
Indian war was ready to break out and 
burn with fury. 

Alexander succeeded his father, Mas- 
sasoit, as chief of the Wampanago?, but 
before a year had passsd he died. During 
his short reign, the cruelty of his savage 
nature evinced itself in acts that came 
near leading to the destruction of his peo- 
ple. The youngest son of Massasoit, Pome- 
tacom, whom the English called Philip, 
became the ruling Sachem of his nation. 
Philip was sometimes called the Sachem 
of Pokanoket. Pometacom is best known 
in American history as King Philip, of 
Mount Hope, from a high and picturesque 
hill in his country on which he made his 
royal residence. Philip, to all appearance, 
was not naturally rash and cruel. At first 
he renewed the treaty and friendly rela- 
tions of his father with the pale-faces. He 
was of a mind broad enough to see that 
resistance to the English was useless, and 
that in a state of peace lay their only 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 49 

safety. East of the Hudson, at this time, 
the Indians were reduced to less than 25,- 
000 persons, while the palefaces had in- 
creased to nearly double that number. 
The Wampanagos had been circumscribed 
in lands to two small tracts, one lying east 
of Narragansett bay, called Tiverton, and 
Bristol on the north of the bay. 

The young warriors smarted under the 
fact that their fathers had sold their lands 
for almost nothing, and the game had 
been scared from their forests, and out of 
the streams the choice fish had been 
caught by the hated pale-faces. Maddened 
by these and other insults, the young 
bloods of dusky hue clamored for war. 
Philip exerted all his power in vain to stay 
the torrent, but it swept on like a great 
flood breaking its barriers, and carried 
him on with it. 

Sachem Canonchet ruled the country 
to the west of Narragansett bay. To him 
Philip sent his wives and children before 
making an attack upon the whites. On 
the 24th of June, 1675, Philip crept si- 
lently, with a party of warriors, up and 



60 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



made an attack upon Swanzey, a small 
place between Tiverton and Bristol. Only 
eight white men were killed, for Sassamon, 
' a converted Indian," had secretly in- 
formed the colony of the meditated at- 
tack, and they were prepared for it. 
The Indians were so incensed at Sassamon 
that they murdered him. The alarm of 
war spread rapidly through the colonies. 
All Indians were suspected. Picked mi- 
litia marched into the Indian country, 
and drove Philip from Mount Hope. With 
about 600 of his best braves he escaped to 
a large swamp in Tiverton. Old Sachem 
Canonchet longed to join Philip against 
the hated whites, but the pale-faces com- 
pelled him to remain neutral and obey 
the terms of the treaty. 

Philip in the swamp fought desperate- 
ly. But being thoroughly surrounded all 
food was cut off, and starvation became im- 
minent. At the last extreme, Philip and 
a few of his men succeeded, under cover 
of night, in escaping, and fled to Central 
Massachusetts, where he joined the Nip- 
mucks. It required no great persuasion 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 51 



to rouse the slumbering passions and ha- 
tred of these savages, and lead them to a 
general and bloody revolt. The redskins, 
now thoroughly aroused, put on the war 
paint, and attacked the defenseless whites, 
and murdered them with all the refine- 
ments of cruelty of Indian warfare. 
Treachery and cruelty vied with each 
other to see which could excel in the 
bloody work. 

At Brookfield a council of Indians was 
invited to meet the whites and settle their 
grievances. The red-skins, instead of go- 
ing to the council as they agreed, lay in 
ambush. At the moment they supposed 
opportune, the dogs of savage warfare 
broke loose and made a fierce attack upon 
the town. The people hastily fled to their 
blockhouse, and for two days endured all 
the horrors of an Indian siege. Burning 
arrows were shot by the Indians over the 
house where the whites were making 
their defense, which set fire to the roof. 
Destruction was to all appearance certain, 
which made the red-skins dance with 
fiendish joy, but Providence averted the 



52 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



calamity by sending a fall of rain. In a 
few hours reinforcements of white troops 
came to the deliverance of Brookfield. 

Hadley was a town in Massachusetts of 
considerable importance at that time. 
While the people were at church on the 
Sabbath day in the quiet act of religious 
worship, the Indians surrounded and at- 
tacked the town. The bloody carnage 
had commenced, and the people were too 
stupified to make any proper resistance. 
It appeared as if the whole population 
were fated to be butchered in cold blood. 

In the village, at that time, was secreted 
by Rev. Mr. Russell, in his house an old 
English General, by the name of Groflfe. 
For some offense against his government, 
Goffe had been sentenced to punishment. 
He succeeded in escaping from his cap- 
tors, and fled to America. He was be- 
friended by Mr. Russell and kept hidden 
for several years in his house. Now, when 
the mad Indians attacked Hadley, this old 
and skilled general came from his hiding- 
place, threw of his old and worn cloak, 
revealing a military costume and a soldier- 



AMERICTN HISTORY. 5S 

ly bearing. General Goffe immediately 
took command, marshaled the men into 
order, commanded their movements, and 
made such a skillful and determined re- 
sistance as to drive back the infuriated 
red-skins with considerable slaughter, and 
delivered the devoted people from cruel, 
tortures and certain death. When the 
danger was averted the old General dis- 
appeared as suddenly as he had appear- 
ed. For his heroic act General Goffe has 
gone into history as the "angel of Hadley." 
After a time the eloquence of Philip 
induced Canonchet, of the Narragansetts, 
to join his forces with Philip and war 
against the pale -faces as a common ene- 
my. Nearly all the tribes east of the 
Hudson were in arms against the pale- 
faces. It became a war of extermination 
on both sides ; one side seeking to re- 
claim their lands from foreign hands, and 
the others to save their lives. The whites 
determined to crush the Narragansetts 
and Wampanagos so as to forever prevent 
a recurrence of these horrible scenes. 
Forces were marched to their country, 



54 AMERICAN HISTORY. 

and operations commenced in terrible 
earnestness. 1 1 did not require a long time 
to destroy the Indian villages, leaving 
nothing remaining but a heap of ruins 
and ashes. Driven from every other place, 
Philip took all the Narragansetts he could 
muster, and fled to cedar swamp, where 
on an island he built a rude fort, and pre- 
pared for a stubborn defense. The whites 
came to the swamp equally determined to 
force an entrance to the fort and utterly 
destroy it and the Indians. Philip is said 
to have had at that time near 4,000 Indi- 
ans under his command. 

Josiah Winslow, leading 1,000 white 
troops, made an assault upon the fort Dec- 
19, 1675. The fort was so built that there 
was but one entrance, and that by a fallen 
tree reaching across the deep water around 
the island to an opening in the palisade. 
Perilous as was the undertaking, a few 
brave men mounted the log and tried to 
cross the fort. The well directed fire of 
the Indians swept them ofif. 

Other soldiers passed around the island, 
and discovering an unprotected place in 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 55 



the fort, quickly assaulted it, and gai €d 
an entrance. Now the combat became 
determined and terrible. " The wig. 
warns were set on fire and the kindling 
flames swept around the village. The 
yells of the combatants mingled with 
the roar of the conflagration." The 
determined and skillful assault of the 
whites, together with the burning of the 
wigwams, caused the Indians to become 
panic stricken. What ever way they 
turned the muskets of the whites shot 
them down. The women, and children, 
and old men in the fort suffered a like 
fate. The flower of the two tribes per- 
ished. 

Philip led a few braves in an attempt 
to break through the white lines, which 
they accomplished, and fled north to the 
Nipmucks, the tribe who had before be- 
friended him. The rigors of a long win- 
ter did not cool their hatred toward the 
whites. But in the spring the war broke 
out with unabated fury, extending from 
the most northern colony to Connecticut. 



56 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



Everywhere carnage, fire, powder and 
death reigned. 

Old Canonchet was soon captured, and 
offered his life on procuring a treaty of 
peace, but not consenting, he was exe- 
cuted. Philip's wife and son were cap- 
tured. The son was sold into slavery, 
and is said to have died a slave in Ber- 
muda. The many misfortunes following 
so hard on Philip, broke his spirits. He 
secretly left his Indian allies and hid 
himself at Mount Hope amidst the 
scenes of his youth and early manhood. 
By some means the whites found out his 
hiding place, and a compiny of soldiers 
were sent to surround the place and cap- 
ture him. On attempting to flee, a 
treacherous Indian shot and killed this, 
the last and bravest of the Wampanago 
Sachems. " His body was cut in quarters 
and his head sent to Plymouth, where it 
was exposed on a gibbet for twenty 
years." 

Thus lived and died Pometacom of the 
Wampanagos, the Sachem of the Pokan- 
okets, a brave, bold and patriotic man, 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 57 

who periled all he had to restore to his 
nation their native land, and to his kin- 
dred their ancient rights. Had he been 
a white man, and put forth such efforts 
to regain and protect his native country, 
his name and fame would have been sung 
by many a poet, and his heroic deeds 
held up to the growing youth as a worthy 
example of real patriotism. Though 
but an Indian he was the Red Hero of 
Massachusetts. 



SHACKAMAXON 

AND THE BATTLE OF THE WILLS 

or, William Penn, the Apostle 
of Peace. 



The people of the world have, since 
the memory of man, been divided into- 
three classes. One class is beligerent, 
overbearing and hateful; another class 
is peaceable, quiet and attractive; be- 
tween these extremes exists a third class 
of weak, unstable people, who are moved 
by the least impulse of the stronger mind 
which has left its influence last upon 
them. The first and second classes have 
strong opinions, and marked ways of ex- 
pressing them, and command others to 
fall in line and obey their opinions. The 
third class are often cringing, destitute of 
opinions and principles, and never make 
any sensible or lasting impressions. These 
people become the tools of stronger wills. 



60 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



It is supposed thai there are no heroic 
acts or romantic events in a life that is 
devoted to peace and its practices. The 
common mind looks only to war, strife, 
carnage and victory as the arena of hero- 
ism. Where conquests are made, hopes 
blighted, or kingdoms are set up, is there 
real romance. The neighing of chargers, 
the blare of bugles, the clash of arms, the 
rattle of musketry, the roar of cannons, 
and the thunder of columbiads, belching 
forth their flames of fire and columns of 
smoke, is the music sweet and glorious 
to many ears. But the world is learning 
that he who governs his own self, is great- 
er than he who takes a city, and that 
true heroism dwells in hearts, loving and 
living peace, gentleness and good will ta 
men. 

The Keystone State of the American 
Union, is^ known as Pennsylvania — a 
large, varied, rich, populous empire of 
itself. Its resources are almost exhaust- 
less ; its soil is fertile, its location in the 
nation exceedingly favorable for success 
in all lines of enterprise ; its schools are 



AMERICAN HISTORY. Gl 



equal to the best in the world, its 
churches commodious and elegant, and 
the people happy and prosperous. 

The history of Pennsylvania is full of 
wild romance. Her noble founder was a 
hero, who fairly earned his name and 
fame in grandly wielding the arts of peace. 

Once Pennsylvania was inhalJited by 
the "Ked Men of the Forest," who own- 
ed the soil and streams, by virtue of birth 
and long possession. This state became 
the possession of white men without strife, 
bloodshed or robbery. On Pennsylvania's 
soil the scenes of frontier war never oc- 
curred, and the warwhoop and bloody as- 
sault of the Indian upon defenseless 
whites was never known. These lands 
were purchased, a fair equivalent paid for 
them, kindness exhibited towards the 
ancient owners, their rights of religion 
respected, and the sacredness of bu- 
rial duly regarded while they lived ; 
and they were taught that the white 
heart would respect the feelings of 
the red men. Pennsylvania was con- 
quered by kindness Here an empire 



62 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



was founded and built up on the corner- 
stone of peace and equity. Its founder 
was the hero of peace. 

William Penn was an English gentle- 
man, born in London, October 14, 1644, of 
a father who was an Admiral in the Eng- 
lish service. Even before young Penn 
had reached twelve years of age, he had 
adopted some of those principles that be- 
came the leading features of his maturer 
life. He was educated in Christ's College 
at Oxford, where he first learned to ad- 
mire the doctrines and customs of the 
Quakers, refusing to bow in obedience to 
the establishment and wear the surplice 
prescribed for all students. For uniting 
with some other Quaker boys in tearing 
off the surplice worn by other students, 
young Penn was expelled from college. 
On returning home, his father became ex- 
ceedingly angry, and after soundly thrash- 
ing the boy sent him from home. After 
a time, the father becoming pacified, took 
him to France, hoping thereby to win 
him from his wild notions of conquering 
the world with peace. France proved an 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 63 



uncongenial country to this youth of un- 
common notions. For its dissipations he 
had no taste, turning to the study of the- 
ology and phylosophy for something to 
satisfy his restless mind. 

Penn's father, finding France without 
allurements for his curious son, sent him 
to Ireland to manage two estates, suppos- 
ing this would surely break the spirit of 
the youth and expel from his heart all 
his wild, insane notions of peace. But 
here young Penn began to apply his prin- 
ciples of peace and equity on the turbu- 
lent Irishman, and soon brought order 
out of confusion, and entirely satisfied his 
father that he possessed capacity for bus- 
iness, as well as a constant opposition to 
parental notions. 

William Penn now became in every re- 
spect a real Quaker, adopting their doc- 
trines, customs, language and form of ad- 
dress. He persisted in wearing his hat 
everywhere, and before everybody, wheth- 
er peasant, court or king. The father 
became greatly incensed at this new 
freak of the son, and sought some way to 



64 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



curb the young Quaker and break his 
stubborn disposition. Young Penn was 
cool and perfectly self-possessed in all his 
acts, but his father was angry, hot-headed 
and determined to break the strong will 
of his peaceable son. But young Penn, 
in his Quaker mildness, went on wearing 
his hat, and saying "thee" and "thou." 
When the king passed, and the crowd ob- 
sequiously doffed their headgear, young 
William stood as straight and dignified 
as a marble monument in a graveyard, 
and wore his hat on top of his head. Such 
an act only made the father more furi- 
ous, and William more a Quaker. After 
a time, his father agreed to consent to all 
his other foolishness and notions, provid- 
ed William would take oflf his hat in pres- 
ence of "the KiDg, the Duke of York 
and himself." Young Penn declared he 
could not remove his hat to any human 
being. The father again turned him out 
of the house. For several years Penn 
was getting into trouble, all because of his 
principles ; sometimes he was brought be- 
fore courts, and at other times was thrown 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 65 



into prison, and then turned out because 
nothing could be done with him. He vi- 
olated no law of the land. He sought 
to do good, bring about a simple method 
of living, and reform society. The life of 
Penn as a Quaker preacher is one of great 
interest, for he was always by his quiet 
way of doing everything just exactly as 
nobody else would do it, bringing every- 
body to oppose him. 

It is of him as the founder of a great 
colony, afterwards to become a keystone 
state, I write. 

In 1680, Charles II. was King of Eng- 
land. To him Penn, then thirty six years 
of age, went with a petition for a grant of 
territory, and the privilege of founding a 
Quaker Commonwealth in the New World. 
The petition did not ask for grant of mon- 
ey, or military aid from the crown, but 
simply the unbroken territory, where he 
might, with his people, exercise perfect 
freedom of conscience. The King was 
owing Penn's father sixteen thousand 
pounds, and he decided to grant the pe- 
tition for the land in the New World on 



66 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



the release of this claim upon the crown. 
The charter was issued to Penn granting 
•' the perpetual proprietorship of this vast 
territory in him and his heirs, on the fe- 
alty of the annual payment of two beaver 
skins. 

Penn designed to call the new colony 
•' New Wales," but afterwards suggested 
" Sylvania," because the land was so thor- 
oughly covered with beautiful forests. 
The king said it should be called " Penn- 
sylvania," as a mark of honor to his late 
friend. Admiral Penn. William tried 
hard to have it changed to something 
else, for it looked so much like vanity,, 
a thing the Quakers of that day detested. 
But neither King Charles nor his faithful 
secretary would allow a change, and it 
was named " Pennsylvania," meaning 
Penn's woods. 

Sir William Jones and Henry Sidney 
were invited to assist him in drawing up 
the model for his new Quaker colony, 
which was to be on the most liberal plan, 
and with laws that would conduce to the 
most perfect good of all the people. The 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 6T' 



best thought of himself and others was 
put into his plan for a government. It 
seems as if all the contingencies of fron- 
tier life, the gathering together of peo- 
ple of different languages and principles, 
the relations to colonies already existing, 
and others likely to be formed, and the 
relation of Pennsylvania to the home 
government, were all fully and minutely 
considered. He planned for the highest 
good for the rich man and poor man, so 
that capital and labor should both be 
placed on their proper footing to accom- 
plish the highest good for both. 

When all his plans were complete, Penn 
called for colonists, who came teeming in 
in great numbers, ready to embark under 
his principles of justice and peace. He 
sent Markham, his deputy, to America, 
who purchased lands, and made treaties 
with the natives, and prepared the way 
for the coming of the moving spirit of 
the enterprise. 

In 1682 Penn embarked for the Dela- 
ware, which he reached in a voyage of six. 
weeks, and was heartily received by the 



•'68 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



Swedes, English and Dutch. He passed 
up the Delaware River, viewed the coun- 
-try, passed the present site of Philadel- 
phia, and became satisfied that his terri- 
tory was all that it was represented to be. 
It has proved to be a garden spot. 

Penn called for a friendly council with 
the red men, where he should be able to 
convince them of his inflexible princi- 
ples of "fraternity and peace." The place 
designated was on the left bank of the 
Delaware, in the open air. To this came 
the Delaware, Mingo and Susquehanna 
tribes of Indians. " All the Sachems of 
"Lenni Lenapes," were invited, besides 
many others who did not attend. The 
Council gathered under a large elm tree, 
which, as it was late in the fall, or early 
in December, was bare of leaves, at a place 
called by the Indians, Shackamaxon, or 
now, Kensington. 

Penn, the leading spirit, came unarmed, 
attended by a few true Quaker friends, 
dressed in the peculiar garb of their 
church, and took his station. The Sach- 
ems and warriors, though decked in wild, 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 6'.> 



barbaric costume, came also unarmed, 
and sat in a semi-circle on the ground 
to smoke the pipe of peace, and commune 
with the white man. These Indian Sach- 
ems were the wisest and strongest of their 
tribes, cultured ip all of Indian cunning. 
They had faithfully learned the lesson of 
stolidity. Upon their countenances could 
be seen no evidence of either the delight 
or craft of the untutored sons of for- 
est, well tutored in all that makes up the 
savage character. They represented the 
race of men who in freedom had occupied 
and ruled the land for centuries, but a 
race which must fade away before the 
race whose finest type was then to appear 
in their councils. 

Penn,as he stood before this semi circle 
of savage warriors, was thirty-eight years 
of age, and in his prime. In appearance 
he was striking, with a round and re- 
markably handsome face without a fur- 
row or mark to indicate habits of dissipa- 
tion, for he was a strictly temperate man, 
with a clear, sparkling eye, thin, but firm- 
ly set lip3, flowing hair, hanging in ring- 



70 AMERICAN HISTORY, 



lets upon his shoulders, and on his head 
a broad-brimed hat. His entire bearing 
was that of a cultured, strong-willed, self- 
possessed, earnest man, at peace with him- 
self and all the world. He looked in every 
way a man of the dominant race, bound 
to rule, and carry forward successfully 
great enterprises. 

Under that elm tree were two repre- 
sentatives of the most heroic ideas of the 
whole world. The savage Sachems, rep- 
resenting uncultured freedom, and a rov- 
ing, nomadic existence,and William Penn, 
the white man of culture and dignity, 
who has resolved to conquer the will, like 
his Great Master, by love and peace. 
These two great powers, these great ideas, 
these typical men, these antagonistic 
forces, stood before each other, to fight a 
battle, not with swords, or spears, or gun, 
or fire, but with brains and heart, with 
love and fraternity. The end was to be 
peace. 

Penn standing before that semi-circle of 
dusky Sachems in his most solemn bear- 
ing.through an interpreter addressed them: 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 71 



My Friends: — We have met on the broad 
pathway of good faith. We are all one flesh 
and blood. Being brethren, no advantage shall 
be taken on either side. When disputes arise, we 
will settle them in council. Between us there shall 
be nothing but openness and love" 

This frank and manly speech, so differ- 
ent from what the red men had been ac- 
customed to hear from their "pale-face" 
invaders, produced marvelous effect. 
Among themselves there was evident 
commotion. New and stirring thoughts 
were passing through their minds, and 
emotions such as were never before stirred, 
were struggling in their hearts. With 
them was the question, so hard to an- 
swer: "Does this pale face man mean what 
he says ? Are his professions real ? Does 
he hide beneath that exterior and those 
words that seem so new and plain to us, a 
spirit that will rise upon us to do us in- 
jury, and rob us of our homes, our lands, 
our wives and our lives ?" 

These men of the forest knew how to 
meet treachery with treachery, and cun- 
ning with cunning ; but here were words 



72 AMERICAN HISTORY. 

conveying a something to them undefin- 
ed, that they knew not. The will of Wm. 
Penn was fighting the will of these chief- 
tains. This was a new mode of warfare. 
They looked up at Penn's eyes and coun- 
tenance for some token of concealed 
treachery. But they only saw in that no- 
ble face, and clear, calm eye, the elements 
of perfect kindness. Little did these 
warriors know that this was the battle 
of psychology ,where mind and soul should 
conquer mind and soul. Unseen influ- 
ences were at work. The will of that 
great Quaker, full of the spirit of his 
Great Master, was conquering the will of 
these savage sons of Adam. 

After they had dwelt upon his words 
for some time, and spoken them over 
among themselves, dwelling on the words, 
"My friends," the Chiefs made answer: 
" While the rivers run and the sun shines, we 
loill live in peace with the children of William 
Penny It is said that no record of this 
treaty was ever made in ink on parch- 
ment. Voltaire said of it, "it was never 
sworn to, and never broken." It was writ- 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 73 



ten on the dusky hearts as well as on 
the Quaker hearts, in living light, and 
was never violated. 

The Delaware Indians called Penn by 
the name of "Mingo," because of his be- 
nevolence and justice, while the Iroquois 
called him "Onas," because of the impres- 
sion he made on their savage hearts, as a 
man of gentle spirit. The impressions of 
the Battle of the Wills, under the elm at 
Shackamaxon, were never efifaced from 
the Indian mind. While other colonies 
were visited with cruel and savage massa- 
cres, Pennsylvania escaped them. 

Penn devoted himself to his colony, 
made treaties of peace with nineteen dif 
ferent tribes, paying them well for their 
lands. He succeeded in planting a great 
colony on religious principles, and devel- 
oped it in righteousness. 



THE BURNire OF THE GRAP PRE, 

AND THE 

Exile of the Acadians. 



Some lands are great for what they 
have produced, and others are great for 
what they have sulBFered. Lands live in 
history as long for what they have suffered 
as for what they have produced. Our 
story is of a land of suffering whose peo- 
ple drained the cup of woe tothe bitterest 
dregs, and driven out from home and na 
tive land ever after wandered in other 
lands, or miserably perished and received 
a sepulchre among strangers. 

To the northeast of the United States, 
and connected to the main land by a slen- 
der ribbon of land on a rocky base, lies a 
well formed peninsula of fairly fertile land, 
having its longest direction northeast by 
southwest. It is washed on the southeast 



76 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



coast by the ceaseless waves of the Atlan- 
tic, and on a part of the west by the ebb 
and flow of the restless Bay of Fundy, 
while to the north are the waters of the 
Northumberland Strait, partly supplied 
by the outflow of that great freshwater 
outlet of the North American lakes, the 
St Lawrence River. This land lies in the 
region of the home of the great north- 
easters, those snow storms, accompanied 
by winds which sweep along the eastern 
coast of North America with untold fury, 
and reach far inland, carrying destruction 
to shipping, and great inconvenience and 
suffering to the people. With all of these 
against this land, it is pleasant and de- 
lightful as a home, and many happy 
hearts have called it native land. 

The land, the easternmost of the conti- 
nent of America, once had the name of 
Cadie, which somehow came to be Acadia, 
but after 1755, was changed to Nova Scotia, 
or New Scotland. The name of Cadie was 
given to it by the royal charter of the 
French King when settled by the French 
in 1604, sixteen years earlier than the 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 77 



landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth 
Rock, and the founding of the great Pu- 
ritan colony. These Acadians were French 
peasants who had been induced to leave 
their homes in France to found a New 
France on the eastern shore of the New 
World. They were an industrious peo- 
ple, mostly of the Roman Catholic faith, 
and retained their native tongue in its 
purity. They found Acadia a wild, un- 
promising land, but under skillful manip- 
ulations of honest industry the wilderness 
lost its wildness, and the desert waste be- 
came a lovely abiding place. Villages 
sprang up, good farms were brought un- 
der fine cultivation, churches were erect- 
ed with spires pointing heavenward to 
cheer and encourage the simple-hearted 
people. These churches, if not as elegant 
as the cathedrals they had worshiped in 
when children in the fatherland, were 
yet comfortable and holy sanctuaries, 
where, after their forms, they served God 
and found spiritual comfort. 

At an early date England claimed this 
peninsula as her possession by "right of 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 



dificoTery," and in 1621, the English King 
granted a royal charter under the name 
of Nova Scotia. The English Government 
attempted to take possession of the coun- 
try soon after, but was obstinately and 
successfully resisted by the French inhab- 
itants. Both home governments, France 
and England, were exercised over this bit 
of the New World. Along the shores, 
and on the recently discovered banks of 
the New Foundland were valuable fisher- 
ies. Each nation desired exclusive pos- 
session and control of these fisheries. 

The French remained really in possess- 
ion until 1713, when at the treaty of 
Utrecht "the province of Acadia was ced- 
ed by France to England," at the same 
time that England obtained Gibralter, Mi- 
norca, the Hudson Bay territories, New 
Foundland, besides the recognition of 
the Protestant succession. Now com- 
menced the hardships of this people un- 
der a change of rule, which was destined 
to be perpetuated through two genera- 
tions, and culminate in one of the most 
cruel acts of wanton destruction and 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 79 



transportation to other lands, of which 
the English government has ever been 
guilty, or modern civilization compelled 
to witness. 

From 1713 to 1755, the country was in 
possession of English officers. The govern- 
ment amounted to little more than a "mili- 
tary occupation of the peninsula." The 
English garrisons were there, and the Un- 
ion Jack floated over Annapolis, and the 
general control was in the hands of a for- 
eign power, but the people were French, 
and could not forget their former happy 
and prosperous days. 

At the time when England took pos- 
session of Acadia there were nearly four 
thousand people; when the French and 
Indian war broke out in 1751 they had in- 
crtrased to near 16,000. At first the English 
demanded of the Acadians that they take 
the oath of allegiance, or leave their 
homes within two years A few emigrat- 
ed to other English colonies, and a few 
returned to France, but the majority re- 
mained and took the oath of fidelity to 
the English king. These were exempt 



80 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



from bearing arms, and were called "neu- 
tral French," and "allowed to enjoy their 
religion, and to have magistrates of their 
own selection." 

The English, after a time, complained 
that the French who owned and settled 
Cape Breton's Island were fomenting 
trouble and carrying on intrigues with 
the Indians, to keep up an "irregular war- 
fare," and harrass the English in their 
possessions. The angry English resolv- 
ed to wreak vengeance upon the innocent 
and neutral French of Acadia, instead of 
attacking the real French offenders. Law- 
rence was the deputy governor of Acadia 
at that time, and pretended to be afraid 
of "an insurrection." 

Several colonial governors met with 
General Braddock at Alexandria, Va., and 
decided that harsh and unusual measures 
should be taken to reduce the Acadians 
to absolute subjection. The entire sub- 
jection of the Acadians was left to Law- 
rence, with such assistance as he might 
obtain from the British fleet. At the same 
time General Braddock was to subdue 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 81 



the French possessions to the west of 
Pennsylvania, lying on the Ohio River. 
These efforts were to be simultaneous 
with those of Lawrence. 

On the 20th of May, 1755, the British 
Squadron, under oommand of Monckton, 
with 3 000 troops, sailed out of Boston 
harbor, bound for the Bay of Fundy, on 
an expedition that mightmake a civilized 
nation blush. In the province of Acadia 
the French had but two fortified places. 
Beau Sejour was the strongest, lying on 
the south of the isthmus connecting the 
peninsula with the main land, near the 
mouth of the Messagouche creek. Gas- 
pereau was on the north of the isthmus, 
beingan indifferent stockade. The French 
commandant, DeVerger, had received no 
intelligence of the intentions of the Eng- 
lish, and was surprised to see the fleet as 
it suddenly came in sight and anchored 
before Fort Beau Sejour. The seige be- 
gan June 12, and lasted four days, when 
the French capitulated. The English 
garrison on taking possession christened 
it Foit Cumberland. The feeble Gaspe- 



82 AMERICAN HISTOK.V. 



reau was taken a few days later, and 
named fort Monckton, in honor of the 
commander of the British fleet. 

At the mouth of St. John's River was 
a French Fort, which the English sent 
Captain Rous with four vessels to destroy, 
but before he could accomplish the ob- 
ject the French burnt the Fort and fell 
back into the country. It would seem 
that so far this branch of the enterprise 
was successful. How about the expedi- 
tion under Braddock? 

General Braddock at the head of 2,000 
veterans started for the western wild, to 
defeat the French in fortifying and oc 
c ipying DeQuesne, now Pittsburg on the 
Ohio river, which was conceded to be a 
strategic point. The march commenced 
May 31st, 1755. Col. Washington, at the 
earnest solicitation of Virginia, accom- 
panied the expedition as an aide-de-camp. 
On the 8th of July the van reached the 
Monongahela, twelve miles above Fort 
DfcQuesne. Washington advised strict 
care on the part of the English troops, 
lest they fall into an ambuscade. But 



AMERICAN HISTORY. b6 

" Braddock flew into a passion, strode up 
n nd down in his tent, and said that it was 
high times when Colonel Buckskin could 
teach a British General how to fight." 
Braddock was a man who in his pride and 
self-will disdained to receive counsel from 
an inferior officer. The outcome demon- 
strated his folly and arrogance, and "he 
died as the fool dieth." 

On the morning of July 9, the English 
forces were marching towards DeQuesne, 
over a narrow road, through a woody and 
uaeven country. Suddenly a quick, sharp 
fire was heard in front. The French had 
oarefully secreted a large number of In- 
dians around the Fort to ambush the 
English. The firing was from a few French, 
led by Beaujau, who acted as a decoy. 
The English somewhat leisurely followed 
oa deeper into the plot. These skilled 
English troops were in the midst of a mer- 
c less ambuscade before they knew it. The 
1 iidians gave their savage war-whoop, and 
from trees and rocks opened fire, which, 
bricg well directed, cut down many an 
English soldier. The English fired volley 



84 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



after volley into the woods and under- 
brush, but saw no foe. The volleys from 
the hidden enemy told fearfully upon 
the "crowded ranks of the English." 
The Indians crept further out upon the 
line of the English, and continued their 
peculiar warfare until the scene became 
a rout. Braddock attempted to stay the 
tide of battle and collect his forces. Horse 
after horse fell under him. The aides were 
shot down. Washington, called by Brad- 
dock ' Col. Buckskin," was the only one 
to distribute commands. Sixty-three offi- 
cers were killed or wounded, and only 
nineteen officers remained. Around lay 
714 soldiers dead or dying. A speeding 
ball struck Braddock in the right side 
and he fell mortally wounded, to expire 
soon after, a martyr to his own caprice. 
Washington went to General Braddock, 
now willing to counsel with an inferior, 
who on being asked by Braddock, "What 
shall we do now, Colonel?" "Retreat, sir, re- 
treat by all means," said Washington. Up- 
on this young Virginian now devolved the 
command. Immediately he commanded 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 85- 



a retreat, and with thirty Virginians cov- 
ered the rear of the retreating army. The 
army was beggared and ruined. Their 
"artillery, provisions, baggage and private 
papers of the General were left on the 
field," to become the lawful possessions 
of the French. 

A Shawnee Chief said he and several of 
his warriors had singled out Washington 
as a mark for their murderous fire. He 
had two horses shot under him, and 
through his coat had passed four bullets 
but Washington was unhurt. He led 
a charmed life. The scenes of 1776 were 
dawning upon the world, as they clearly 
existed in the mind of Providence. Wash- 
ington was a man of destiny. 

In this attack the French suffered but 
little. They were enriched with spoils 
and the equipage of war such as they 
needed, and the Indians were fairly in- 
toxicated over so many scalps of white 
men. The English on the 8th of July, 
1755, in Braddock's defeat and dreadful 
loss, paid dearly for the success of Gen- 
eral Lawrence and Admiral Boscawan in 



■ 86 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



May of the same year over the French in 

Acadia and New Brunswick. British 
G' nerals were humbled to the point of 
learning that Colonel Buckskin was yet 
to be a terrible power to overthrow all 
their authority in the colonies of Ameri- 
ca before 1 784. George Washington was 
being moulded for the American struggle 
for independence under the eye of the 
English General. "There is a divinity 
that shapes our ends rough hew them as 
we will." 

Acadia was destined to find no rest. 
The French yet outnumbered the Eng- 
lish. The English authorities planned 
how to make the English outnumber the 
French. It was at last resolved to banish 
the Acadians. This people, who since 
1604, for a period of 150 years, or nearly 
five generations, had occupied the land, 
should leave all, to be turned out to the 
cold world, to live if they could, to die if 
they must. The Acadians were first com- 
manded to take an oath, so framed as to 
be obnoxious to honest Catholics. The 
people consented to declare loyalty, but 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 87 



refused to take the oath of allegiance. 
Not content with this, the English com- 
pelled the French to surrender all their 
firearms. Having done this, they were 
utterly powerless and defenceless. Next, 
their boats were taken from them, so they 
could not live by fishing orescape to other 
provinces. Broken-hearted and utterly 
crushed by these cruelties, the people 
offered to take the oath of allegiance, but 
the Governor declared they should not, 
because they had at first refused the oath. 

The time had come for forcing the peo- 
ple to embark on the British vessels. The 
soldiers burned the houses, and laid waste 
the country about the isthmus, and forced 
the people to the seashore. As fast as 
possible they were driven on shipboard. 
Their estates were confiscated. What 
the English desired not to keep was burnt. 
Families were separated in the hurried 
embarkation, and were never again united. 

Near tne isthmus was located the vil- 
lage of Grand Pre. At a signal, 418 un- 
armed men were locked into the church, 
and guards placed around them, wha 



.'88 AMERICAN HISTORY, 



kept them prisoners for four days, while 
their families were in suspense as to their 
fate, Longfellow, in his Evangeline, has 
immortalized this and succeeding scenes, 
as he has embalmed them in poetry. 
While the Acadians were wondering why 
they were imprisoned, a guard from the 
ship came 

"Marching proudly among them 

Entered the sacred portal, with loud and dissonant 
clangor 

Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous por- 
tal 

Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of 
the soldiers. 

Then uprose the commander, and spoke from the 
steps of the altar, 

Holding aloft in his hands, with seals, the royal com- 
mission, 

"You are convened this day," he said, "by his Maj- 
esty's orders, 

Clement and kind has he been ; but how you have 
answered his kindness, 

Let your own hearts reply ! To my natural make 
and easy temper, 

Painful the task is I do, which to you, 1 know, must 
be grievous. 

Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of the 
Monarch, 

l^amely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cat- 
tle of all kinds, 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 80 



Forfeited be to the Crown ; and that you yourselves 
from this province 

Be transported to other lands. God grant you may 
dwell there 

Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable peo- 
ple ! 

Prisoners, now I declare you ; for such is his Maj- 
esty's pleasure." 

The pent up rage of the unarmed Aca 
dians broke forth to wasteitself on merci- 
less soldiers, who at the point of the bay- 
onet marched them down to the seashore. 
Here were old men, broken-hearted wives, 
mothers, and daughters, and little chil- 
dren, with fragments of household goods. 
The sick and poor, the halt and blind, the 
old and .young, were here gathered in 
wretched plight and bitter sorrow. The 
hard-earned luxuries of years of toil and 
privations must be left behind. Heart- 
sick and soul broken, these Acadian s 
were like sheep driven to an English 
slaughter. Out in the bay lay the ships 
waiting for their unwilling passengers. 
On the shore were 1,900 souls. Wails of 
anguish went up to heaven, and curses of 
bitterest accents were uttered, but a cruel 
soldiery drove the people into the boats. 



90 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



Strong men, old men, sick folks, infirm: 
matrons, little children, broken hearted 
maidens, and tender infants, were driven 
pell mell to the boats. While this scene 
was transpiring at the sea, a band of sol- 
diers had fired the village behind the 
fcigitives : 
"Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn 

the blood red 
Morn climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er 

the horizon 
Titan -like stretches its hundred hands upon moun- 
tain and meadow, 
Lining the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge 
shadows together." 

The fire spread from house to house, 
and barn to barn until the entire village 
was wrapped in lurid flames. The col- 
umns of smoke and fire ascended, and 
told of loss and ruin, of blasted hopes 
and wasted fortunes. 

These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the 

shore and shipboard. 
Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their 

anguish, 
" We shall behold no more our homes in the village 

of Grand Pre !'' 

No tongue can tell or pen describe the 
anguish of that scene. Families were 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 91 



separated, some carried on board one ves- 
sel, and others forced to another ship, 
which sailed away, landing their people 
at different ports. Many families never 
again met. 

The story as related in Evangeline is a 
graphic delineation of this sad scene, the 
burning of Grand Pre. An old man of 
prominence, father of Evangeline, was 
so overwhelmed by this sad disaster as to 
fall in a swoon and die of a broken heart. 
Overwhelmed by her great grief, Evange- 
line fell senseless. On recovering, she 
heard the familiar voice of her priest say, 
'Let us lay him here by the sea." 

This cruel act, theexileof the Acadians, 
is a blot upon the English name which 
was never fully washed away, though the 
united colonies of America, driven to des- 
peration, declared, "we are and of a right 
ought to be free.'' 



DeSoto, 

And his Last Adventure. 



Strangely enough, the name of BeSoto 
is in no way connected with his last and 
greatest adventure and discovery — the 
hazardous exploration of Florida, Georgia, 
Alabama and Mississippi, and the dis- 
covery of that great Father of Waters, 
the Mississippi River. He was one of the 
products of the wild and adventurous 
times in which he was born, who became 
fully imbued with the idea that greatness 
could be found only in braving dangers, 
wading through swamps, conquering sav- 
ages, meeting with romantic, hair-breadth 
escapes, and exalting Spain. Whatever 
faults these old cavaliers might have had 
regarding other things, all were true to 
Spain no matter how illy treated at court. 



94 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



They might be hacked to pieces in a hun- 
dred hand to hand contests, and shiver 
and shake with chills, and burn up with 
fever in the swamps of the New World, 
still Spain and Spanish glory were all the 
world to them. Their loyalty is worthy 
of commendation. 

Fernando, or as some write it, Hernan- 
do DeSoto, first saw the light of day at 
Xero de los Caballoros, in the Spanish 
Province of Estremadura, about the year 
1496, just when Spain had reached her 
meridian of fame in the discovery of 
America His family were of noble rank, 
though so greatly reduced by extrava- 
gance as to boast of little more than the 
greatness of the name. Through the fa- 
vor of Pedrania Davila, a friend of his fam- 
ily, he was able to spend several years at 
one of the Spanish Universities. He ap- 
plied himself so faithfully to study as to 
become distinguished in literary studies, 
and especially so in athletic sports and 
horsemanship. 

The ambition of his day led DeSoto to 
accompany Davila, Governor of Darien, 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 95 



in 1519, to America. He was then twenty- 
five years of age, well educated, and with 
a liberality of opinions and love of jus- 
tice beyond those times. He continued 
nine years in Darien and Nicaragua, be- 
coming heartily disgusted with the char- 
acter of the provincial governments, and 
the bitterest "opponent of the oppression 
administration" of Davila. 

In 1528 DeSoto withdrew from Davila, 
and explored the coast of Gautamala and 
Yucatan for about seven hundred miles, 
hoping to find some passage of communi- 
cation between the Gulf of Mexico and 
the peaceful Pacific. No such strait be- 
ing found, he looked for some fruitful 
field for youthful enterprise. 

Pizarro at this time was entering the 
land of the Incas, seeking to over- 
throw this great South American Empire 
that had existed for centuries, and attach 
it to the Spanish crown. To this fruitful 
field of stirring scene DeSoto in 1532 turn- 
ed with bounding heart. Gathering a few 
congenial spirits — one hundred in all — 
he sailed down the Pacific towards Peru. 



96 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



It was at the time when Pizarro, hard 
pressed by the natives, was on the island 
of Pana, fighting for an existence. Pizarro 
was "gladdened by the appearance of two 
vessels off the island," bearing the com- 
mand of DeSoto, and his one hundred 
men and horses for the cavalry. With 
such an aid Pizarro determined to re- 
move to the main land, and follow closely 
the example of Cortez in the Conquest of 
Mexico, whose remarkable career he im- 
itated. 

DeSoto, standing high in the esteem of 
Pizarro, was often sent on the most im- 
portant expeditions. In one of these, he 
discovered the great National Road lead- 
ing to Caxamalca, the Peruvian capital. 
When Pizarro was preparing to enter the 
city, he sent DeSoto as the royal ambas- 
sador to the Inca, Atahuallpa. Prescott 
eloquently describes the scene : 

"Between the city and the imperial 
camp was a causeway, built in a substan- 
tial manner across the meadow land that 
intervened. Over this the cavalry gal- 
loped at a rapid pace, and before they 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 97 



had gone a league, they came in front of 
the Peruvian encampment, where it 
spread along the gentle slope of the 
mountains. The lances of the warriors 
were fixed in the ground before their 
tents, and the Indian soldiers were loit- 
ering without, gazing with silent astonish- 
ment at the Christian cavalcade, as with 
clangor of arms and shrill blast of trum- 
pet it swept by, like some fearful appari- 
tion, on the wings of the wind. 

" The party soon came to a broad but 
shallow stream, which, winding through 
the meadow, formed a defense for the 
Inca's position. Across it was a wooden 
bridge ; but the cavaliers distrusting its 
strength, prepared to dash through the 
waters, and without difficulty gained the 
opposite bank." 

DeSotoat their head, rode to the place 
pointed out as the Inca's quarter. "It was 
an open court yard, with a light building, 
or pleasure house in the center, having 
galleries running around it, and opening 
in the rear on a garden. The walls were 
covered with a shining plaster, both white 



98 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



and colored, and in the area before the 
edifice was seen a spacious tank or reser- 
voir of stone, fed by aqueducts that sup- 
plied it with warm and cold water. * ^ 
The court was filled with Indian nobles, 
dressed in gaily ornamented attire, in 
attendance on the Monarch, and with 
women of the royal household. ' Amidst 
this assemblage it was not difficult to 
distinguish the person of Atahuallpa, 
though his dress was simpler than 
that of his attendants. But he wore on 
his head the crimson horla or fringe, which, 
surounding the forehead, hung down as 
low as the eyebrow. This was the well 
known badge of Peruvian sovereignty, 
and had been assumed by the monarch 
only since the defeat of his brother Hu- 
ascon. He was seated on a low stool, or 
cushion, somewhat after the Morisco, or 
Turkish fashion, and his nobles and prin- 
cipal officers stood around him with great 
ceremony, holding the stations suited to 
their rank." 

DeSoto, Hernando Pizarro, with two or 
three followers, "slowly rode up in front 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 99 



of the Inc8." They did not dismount, 
but began an address informing Atahuall- 
pa of the approach of PIzarro to Caxam- 
alca ; that "they were the subjects of a 
mighty prince across the water, and had 
come, drawn thither by the report of his 
greatness, to cflfer him their services, and 
to impart to him the doctrines of the true 
faith which they professed." The Inca 
answered not a word, nor gave a sign of 
acknowledgment that he heard or under- 
stood a word. 

" DeSoto was the best mounted, and 
perhaps the best rider in Pizarro's troop. 
Observing that Atahuallpa looked with 
some interest on the fiery steed that stood 
before him, champing the bit and pawing 
the ground with the natural impatience of 
a war horse, the Spaniard gave him the 
rein, and striking his iron heel into his 
side, dashed furiou&ly over the plain; 
then wheeling him round and around, dis 
played all the beautiful movements of his 
charger, and his own excellent horseman- 
ship. Suddenly checking him in full ca- 
reer, he brought the animal almost on 



100 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



his haunches, so near the person of the 
Inca that some of the foam that flecked 
his horse's sides was thrown on the royal 
garments." 

DeSoto was with Pizarro during the 
seige of the Inca's capital, and his cap- 
ture, displaying remarkable military ge- 
nius and skill, and witnessed his ran- 
som with gold filling the room of the cap- 
tive a3 high as he could reach, and the 
promise of release. DeSoto was sent, 
with a few men,. on an expedition requir- 
ing an absence of several days. During 
this absence, Pizarro pretended that Ata- 
huallpa was exciting an insurrection. Af- 
ter going through the farce of a trial, At- 
ahuallpa was executed with the garrote. 

" A day or two after these tragic events, 
Hernando DeSoto returned from his ex- 
cursion. Great was his astonishment and 
indignation at learning what had been 
done in his absence. He sought out Pizar- 
ro at once, and found him, says the chron- 
icler, "with a great felt hat, by way of 
mourning, slouched over his eyes, and in 
dress and demeanor exhibiting all the 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 101 

show of sorrow." "You have acted rash- 
ly," said DeSoto to him bluntly; "Ata- 
huallpa has been basely slandered. There 
was no enemy at Quamachucho, no rising 
among the natives. I have met with noth- 
ing on the road but demonstrations of 
good will, and all is quiet. If it was 
necessary to bring the Inca to trial, he 
should have been taken to Castile and 
judged by the Emperor. 1 would have 
pledged myself to see him safe on board 
the vessel." 

So disgusted did DeSoto become with 
the base conduct of Pizarro concerning 
the Inca, that soon after he abandoned 
Peru and sailed for Spain with a fortune 
of half a million dollars. He was receiv- 
ed at the court with flattering attentions. 
Charles V. seemed delighted to honor so 
bold and true a man. DeSoto had long 
been attached to a daughter of Davila, 
his old patron, whom he now married. 

Spain was rife with rumors that some- 
where in Florida was a spring, or foun- 
tain of eternal youth, in which if the 
aged bathe the flower of youth would 



102 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



soon return. Parcede Leon had heard of 
such a place and spring, but died without 
discovering it. Now the popular belief 
was that somewhere in Florida was a New 
El Dorado, "richer than any that had been 
discovered." DeSoto proposed to make 
the conquest of this wonder land, and 
was aided by the Emperor, who appoint- 
ed him Governor of Cuba and Florida. 

DeSoto had many applicants to join his 
expedition, mostly from among the high 
born Spanish, who saw before them splen- 
did opportunities for distinction. He se- 
lected six hundred "of the best, twenty- 
four ecclesiastics and twenty oflScers. The 
men selected clad themselves in costly 
suits of armor, and all the barbaric trap- 
pings of the knights of chivalry. At this 
distance of time, it is amusing to think 
of the preparations for this expedj^tion. 
"Arms and stores were provided, shackles 
were wrought for the slaves, tools for 
the forge and workshop were abundantly 
supplied ; bloodhounds were bought and 
trained for the work of hunting fugitives ; 
cards to keep the young knights excited 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 103 



with gaming, and a drove of swine to fatten 
on the maize and mast of the country." 

With such a crowd of followers, who 
little comprehended what trials were be- 
fore them, DeSoto sailed from SanLucar 
in April, 1538, with a fleet of ten ships. 
They stopped first at Santiago in Cuba, 
and then at Havana. The stories heard 
at these two points raised their enthusi- 
asm to the highest pitch. DeSoto left 
his wife in Cuba to govern the island, and 
himself and comrades sailed for Florida. 
On the 25th of May, 1539, the fleet cast an- 
chor in Espiritu Santo Bay, afterward call- 
ed Tampa Bay. His Cuba volunteers, on 
seeing the desolate shore and dark waves 
where they had anchored, sailed back to 
Cuba, content rather with the luxuries of 
that island than to risk the finding of 
one better. 

Leaving men to care for the ships, De- 
Soto and his cavaliers landed, and com- 
menced a march to the interior, which 
they were destined never to complete. 
Narvaez, a former invader of Florida, had 
so ill-used the Indians that they were 



104 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



hostile to the whites, and on every occa- 
sion resisted them, and killed them as op- 
portunity allowed. During the hot and 
deadly months of July, August and Sep- 
tember, DeSoto was making slow head- 
way to the North, "wading through 
swamps, swimming rivers and fighting 
the Indians." It is easy, even now, to 
one who has seen some of that country, 
with its swamps, deep bayous, slimy rep- 
tiles, savage alligators, scanty provisions, 
and abundant malaria, to conceive of the 
hardships encountered by these cavaliers. 
In July, DeSoto ordered his ships to re- 
turn to Spain. One of Narvaez's soldiers, 
Juan Arter, had been captured by the In- 
dians, among whom he learned their lan- 
guage. Juan escaped from the Indians, 
and, joining DeSoto, became of great use 
as an interpreter. His familiarity with 
Indian customs and perfidy, was likewise 
of value. Sometime in October this 
band of Spanish adventurers reached the 
Apalachian country. Here they fortified 
suflBciently to remain secure for about 
four months, sending out expeditions 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 105 



in different directions, vainly hoping 
soon to find the rich and beautiful El Do- 
rado. One of these came to the Gulf of 
Mexico, near where now is Pensacola. 
When the spring of 1540 came, DeSoto 
broke up his camp, and started on a 
march to the Northeast. The Indians 
were desirous of getting the invaders out 
of the country. To do this, they told the 
Spaniards of "a powerful and populous 
empire in that direction, a woman was 
empress, and the land was full of gold." 
When the Spaniard, Juan Ortie, versed in 
Indian duplicity, told that there was no 
such country, "DeSoto only said that he 
would find gold or see proof with his own 
eyes." On they plunged through woods 
and swamps. They came to the Ogechu 
River in April. "The Indian guide went 
mad; and when the priests had conjured 
the evil spirit out of him, he repaid their 
benevolence by losing the whole company 
in the forest." 

It is probably true that when DeSoto 
reached the Savannah River,he turned his 
course westward, crossing northern Geor- 



106 AMERICAN HISTORY, 



gia to the upper waters of the Coosa River, 
and going down the river to Alabama. 
Their first terrible battle was fought at the 
junction of the Tombechee and the Ala- 
bama Rivers, where the Indians had a 
fortified town, called Manville, or by 
some. Mobile. The attack of DeSoto was 
sudden and terrible. The arms of the 
Indians could not cope with the arms 
of the Spanish. The Indians made a 
gallant and stubborn defense. Fire was 
set to the town, which swept away the 
defenses, and gave the Spaniards a clear 
field. The Indian loss was chronicled to 
be over 2,500, while eighteen of DeSoto's 
men were killed and one hundred and 
fifty wounded. He afso lost eighty horses 
and a large amount of baggage, causing 
great inconvenience. What cared these 
freebooters for loss; were they not soon 
to enter the long-sought ElDorado ? 

Turning northward, they came into an 
unknown and unexplored country. Euro- 
pean foot had never trodden these plains 
before. They suffered much, for the coun- 
try was poor, and but little food could be 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 107 



obtained. In December DeSoto and his 
company had penetrated to Northern 
Mississippi, into th-e Chickasaw country. 
They crossed the Yazoo, and soon found 
themselves in the cold of an early winter. 
Snow fell, and the Spaniards being illy 
clothed and poorly fed, nearly starved. 
The Indians had left some patches of 
maize, which the Spaniards eagerly gath- 
ered. They soon found a deserted In- 
dian village, wherein they took shelter. 
In February, 1541, the Indians made a 
savage attack by night upon the village, 
setting the town on fire, "determined 
then and there to make an end of the 
desolating foreigners." This fight found 
the Spaniards ofi" their guard. But soon 
gathering their arms, they went into the 
conflict with discipline and desperation. 
The Spaniards lost forty men in the fight. 
Gathering up his forces, DeSoto again 
started westward. Soon after, a "pesti- 
lential fever" broke out, and several cav- 
aliers died. It is no wonder that a fever 
occurred, when it is remembered how 
much of the time they had waded through 



108 AMERICAN HISTORY, 



swamps, and wandered in woods, and 
struggled through tall, wet grass on the 
plains. It is a wonder all had not died. 
Once more, gathering provisions and re- 
clothing themselves as well as possible, 
DeSoto and his remaining companions 
marched westward. Toiling on some 
days, they came suddenly to the top of 
the lower Chickasaw Bluff, and saw before 
them the longest river in the world, the 
grand Father of Waters, the Majestic 
Mississippi. This was the first time that 
eyes of white men ever saw its rolling 
tide. Stretching far to the north, the 
water seemed ever to be coming down. 
Before them, spread out to over a mile 
and a half wide the ceaseless, restless 
tide was constantly surging by, almost a 
thing of life. To the south the stream 
was seen onward going, never returning. 
All the rivers ever seen before by DeSoto 
dwindled into insignificance before this, 
the Father of Waters. Across the great 
stream was spread out an open country, 
skirted by woods, covered with the early 
green grass, while early spring flowers 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 109 



adding to the witching scene, and hight- 
ened its beauty. Hidden in that myste- 
rious land was the ElDorado of Colorado, 
Nevada and California, which these Span- 
ish explorers were destined never to see, 
and which nearly three centuries longer 
should be held in the embrace of the un- 
known before yielding up its treasure to 
avaricious men. 

How little could DeSoto conceive of 
this wonderful discovery of his. Not 
even dimly could he see the vast empire 
of freemen holding this river as its grand 
artery of trade, and the millions of happy, 
intelligent people who should rear cities, 
cultivate farms, build great industries, and. 
call this land home. 

Barges were built and DeSoto and his 
company transported across the waters. 
They entered the land of the Dakotas 
and continued to travel to the northwest, 
finding wild fruits plentiful, and sub- 
sistence easy. The natives, not having 
seen or had contact with white men, and 
been corrupted by them, were far more 
mild and pacific. DeSoto continued north 



110 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



and west somewhere near two hundred 
and fifty miles, when he turned south to 
the Hot Springs of Arkansas. On the 
banks of the Washita he passed a long 
and disagreeable winter. When the spring 
of 1542 came, DeSoto and his men were 
despondent, and in great destitution. 
DeSoto himself was broken down in 
health and spirits. Soon he became a prey 
to melancholy. They started down the 
Red River, and came to the Mississippi, 
where the expedition stopped, for the 
great leader had been attacked with a 
malignant fever. His emaciated frame 
could not endure this onset of disease. 
He thought of his wife in Cuba, his home 
in Spain, his ambition to find the wonder- 
land of ElDorado,of his men who needed 
a leader, and then of his death. He ap- 
pointed Morcoso his successor. The hour 
came when death conquered the warrior 
of two continents. At midnight the 
priests chanted a solemn requiem. His 
body was placed in a "rustic coffin," — 
some authorities say wrapped in his man- 
tle — rowed out to the middle of the Mis- 



AMERICAN HISTORY. Ill 



sissippi, and by means of heavy stones 
sunk to the bottom of the stream that he 
was first to discover. Here his comrades 
left him, in the midst of the great waters 
with whose history the name of DeSoto 
is imperishably connected. 



IvIATOAKA, 

OR 

CAPT, JOHN SMITH mPOCAHOHTAS, 

The Maiden of Powhatan. 



The banks of James Kiver are classic 
ground, dear to loyal Americans, and form- 
ing a central figure in colonial history. 
The early history of every country nec- 
essarily has more or less of the marvelous 
and legendary connected with it, but gen- 
erally there was some event as the true 
foundation of the story. The kernel of 
the story is true, though the embellish- 
ments may be the work of men. While 
it is possibly true that all gathering ex- 
cressences of a legendary tale may not be 
separated from the real story, sometimes 
it is better to admit the existence of the 
fact somewhere, and continue the mar- 
velous when no principle is compromised. 



114 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



It is a wonder that in the discovery and 
conquest of so vast and wild a continent 
as America, and the planting and develop- 
ment of such a country as the United 
States, there is not more of the legendary 
than there is. Had this work been wrought 
in the palmy days of classic Greece, or 
amid the fairy scenes of an oriental land, 
the story of our nations planting would 
have outrivaled the wonderful Troy, and 
our naval engagements have caused those 
of Salamis and the Nile to pale before 
meridian glory. 

The history of the planting of the col- 
ony of Virginia, reads like an elegantly 
wrought romance. 

In England two companies of adven- 
turers were formed to sail over the stormy 
Atlantic, and plant colonies in the New 
World. One was known as the Plymouth 
company, receiving the grant of North 
Virginia, extending from the Hudson to 
New Foundland ; the other the London 
company, receiving the grant of South 
Virginia, extending from the mouth of 
the Potomac south to Cape Fear. By agree- 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 115 



ment all the country from the Potomac 
to the Hudson was neutral territory. 

The London company determined to 
push their enterprise, and as speedily as 
possible bring out of it the coveted return 
— gold. They equipped three ships with 
provisions and implements considerably 
unsuited to a new country, and gathered 
one hundred and fifty emigrants. Thi& 
was a motley crowd leaving England, the 
old, for America, the new. Among them 
were four carpenters, eight masons and 
blacksmiths, twelve laborers, and forty- 
eight gentlemen. The occupation of the 
thirty-three other emigrants is not 
given. The ships were under the com- 
mand of Captain Christopher Newport. 
However, Captain John Smith was the 
master spirit of the expedition, a man 
destined to become truly famous in the 
planting of English government on the 
"sacred soil." 

While crossing the ocean, there being 
no authorized leader, anarchy and confu- 
sion abounded. King James had unwise- 
ly sealed his instructions, and ordered 



116 AMERICAN HISTORY, 



the colonists not to open them until they 
landed in America. Smith's companions 
were jealous of him, and invented stories 
derogatory of his excellent character, and 
sought to degrade him in the eyes of the 
entire colony. But this man of magnan- 
imous heart continued on in his wonted 
course umoved by defamers, or their base- 
less stories. 

The ships entered Chesapeake Bay April 
26th, 1607. On its tranquil bosom they 
sailed, skirting the shore and watching 
the inlets, greatly moved by the sight of 
the forests that lined the shores and cov- 
ered the promontories. They discovered 
and entered the mouth of James River, 
and determined on its banks to found a 
town to be known as Jamestown, in honor 
of the King of England. The site of the 
town was selected May 13th. Work com- 
menced immediately. Houses and a rude 
fort were erected. In a few days the en- 
tire colony disembarked from their ships 
and took formal possession of the coun- 
try from which the white man was never 
to be driven. 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 117 



At present, all that remains of James- 
town is a part of the old church tower, 
with some tombstones left standing. 

After the colony became settled, Cap- 
tain Newport with twenty men ascended 
James River, exploring it for about twenty- 
five miles. They found the river obstruct- 
ed by a falls, near the present city of Rich- 
mond. This prevented further ascent, 
but they found the capital of Powhatan, 
the Indian monarch of the tribes inhabit- 
ing this part of the country. It was a mis- 
erable Indian village of twelve wigwams. 
Powhatan received the white invaders 
with Indian formality and rustic courtesy. 
Most of the Indians disliked the white 
faces, but the monarch sought to change 
their hatred to respect. 

About the last of June Newport sailed 
for England, leaving the little colony to 
struggle the best it could to live, or die if 
it must. A fearful sickness broke out in 
August, and nearly depopulated the col- 
ony. At one time only five men were well 
enough to mount guard on the little fort. 
Ey the middle of September about half 



118 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



the colony were swept away by death. 
Disaster stared them in the face. Nearly 
all the leading men proved to be so un- 
principled that none would trust them. 
In this extremity Martin elected Captain 
Smith "President of Virginia." At this 
day, looking on the surroundings, it seems 
as though this act was hopeless of good 
results. But this brave, true heart, took 
up the office, exercised his good judgment, 
and saved the colony from entire destruc- 
tion. 

Captain John Smith, the savior of Vir- 
ginia, one of nature's noblemen, and one 
of the most noted men in early American 
history, was a true and brave Englishman. 
He was born in England in January, 1579, 
and was of a roving disposition, and fond 
of feats of daring. "On the death of his 
father, he was apprenticed to a merchant 
of Lynn, whom he soon quitted to enter 
the service of a nobleman who was going 
to the continent." He served in the wars 
in the Netherlands when Spanish ambi- 
tion sought to complete the subjugation 
of the Dutch. Meeting a Scotchman, he 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 110 



was persuaded to go to Scotland, but was 
disappointed in receiving favor at court. 
Disappointed he went to his native 
town, and built a hut in the woods, where 
he busied himself in reading works on 
military science. In 1596 he set out on 
his travels, visiting Flanders and France, 
then sailing from Marseilles into Italy. 
Having been shipwrecked on the island 
of St. Mary, he was befriended by the 
Master of an Alexandrian ship, who took 
him to Egypt, In the Levant he assisted 
in the capture of a ship of Venice, and 
with his prize money traveled through 
Italy. Soon he entered the Austrian ser- 
vice and commanded a company against 
the Turks. In Hungary and Transylvania 
the impetuosity of his youth led him to 
daring exploits, for which Sigismond Ba- 
thori gave him "a patent for nobility and 
a pension." Continuing his daring deeds 
he was captured by the Turks, who sent 
him a slave to Constantinople. Adversity 
could not conquer Smith. By courtly ad- 
dress he gained the affection of "his young 
mistress, who, to secure his safety, sent 



120 AMERICAN HISTORY, 



him to her brother, a Pasha on the Sea 
of Azof. "In her letter she confessed 
her attachment to the white slave, and 
desired his liberty. The Pasha, enraged 
by his sister's love for a Christian dog, 
beat and maltreated Smith, hoping there- 
by to put him out of the way, or crush any 
reciprocation of love for the Turkish maid 
en. Smith became exasperated, and at- 
tacked his master, beat out his brains 
with a flail, and clothed himself in the 
dead Pasha's garments. Mounting his mas- 
ter's hoyse he fled to the wilderness, and, 
after enduring great suffering, came to a 
Russian garrison on the Don. Here he 
was kindly received and aided in his jour- 
ney to Transylvania, from whence he 
proceeded to England. He reached his 
native land in time to take a part in the 
war in Barbary. 

Some of the stories of Smith's daring 
are wonderful. "At the seige of Regal, 
the Lord Turbisha, challenged any Chis 
tian commander to fight with him in the 
presence of the ladies for their particular 
amusement. The duty of encountering 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 121 



this champion, devolved by lot upon 
Smith, who killed him, struck oflF his 
head and bore it in triumph to the gen- 
eral of the Transylvanian army. A friend 
of Turbisha, now sent Smith a challenge, 
which he accepted. They fought as be- 
fore, in the presence of the ladies, who 
witnessed the defeat of the Turk, and 
his decapitation by Smith. Smith now 
sent word to the Ottomans that, for the 
further gratification of their ladies, he 
would encounter any champion whom 
they might select. Bonomalgro accepted 
the challenge, and in the combat which 
took place Smith, although stricken to 
the ground, regained his saddle at a for- 
tunate moment, and severed the infidel's 
head from his body." For this exploit 
Smith received a splendid horse and sa- 
bre, a Major's commission, gold, and a 
coat of arms with three Turks' heads in a 
shield. 

This was the man, who not yet thirty 
years of age, was chosen "President of 
Virginia." The enemies who had per- 
secuted and vilified him were now calling 



122 AMERICAN HISTORY- 



on him to rescue them and their colony 
from sure destruction. 

John Smith was a remarkable man 
with a marvelous career. He brought to 
the colony his genius for government, and 
very soon the aflFairs so unpropitious as- 
sumed another and a better aspect. The 
experiences of past years taught him how 
to handle men, and calm rising anger 
and allay uncalled for jealousies. 

On entering upon his duties, Smith 
carefully guarded against further sick- 
ness, and sought the restoration of those 
already sick. The houses of the colonists 
were poor, conveniences few, food scarce, 
and discipline gone. He commenced re- 
pairing the houses, and built a common 
storehouse, and prepared for the coming 
winter. The fort, which had been rudely 
constructed, he very materially strength- 
ened, so that the assaults of Indians could 
be more certainly repelled. These colo- 
nists had not given attention to securing, 
by planting grain around the fort, a sup- 
ply of food, and Smith saw the impera- 
tive need for attention to this. He planned 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 123 

an expedition which brought the needed 
supply from the natives. 

" Although ignorant of the Indian lan- 
guage," says Ridpath, "Smith undertook 
the hazardous enterprise. Descending 
James River as far as Hampton Roads, 
he landed with his five companions, went 
boldly among the natives, and began to 
offer them hatchets and copper coins in ex- 
change for corn. The I ndians only laughed 
at the proposal, and then mocked the 
half-starved foreigners by offering to bar- 
ter a piece of bread for Smith's sword and 
musket. Finding that good treatment 
was only thrown away, the English captain 
formed the desperate resolution of fright- 
ening them. He and his men fired a volley 
among the affrighted savages, who ran 
yelling into the woods. Going straight 
to their wigwams, he found an abundance 
of corn, but forbade his men to take a 
grain until the Indians should return to 
attack them. Sixty or seventy painted 
warriors, headed by a priest who carried 
an idol in his arms, soon came out of the 
forest and made a violent onset. The 



124 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



English not only stood their ground, but 
made a rush, wounded several of the na- 
tives and captured their idol. A parley 
now ensued; the terrified priest came 
and humbly begged for his fallen deity, 
but Smith stood grimly with his musket 
across the prostrate idol, and would grant 
no terms until six unarmed Indians had 
loaded his boat with corn. Then the 
image was given up, beads and hatchets 
were liberally distributed among the war- 
riors who ratified the peace by performing 
a dance of friendship, while Smith and his 
men rowed up the river with a boat load 
of supplies." 

Captain Smith possessed a genius of un- 
common grasp, which never failed to de- 
vise some way out of most imminent dan- 
ger. His perfect self command, and sto- 
ical manner before enemies, and especial- 
ly before the wild men of the forest, gave 
him a remarkable influence over them. 
He was a superior disciplinarian, and so 
impressed men under his command that 
they seldom hesitated to obey his orders. 
His genius to command, and stoicism in 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 125 

danger, never interfered with his tender- 
ness to men who were sufifering. Friend 
or foe in adversity, alike found in him a 
heart quick to respond to the calls of hu- 
manity. His last morsel of food was free- 
ly given to a hungry man, while himself 
would go without. Such acts made men 
esteem him, yea, even adore him, and fol- 
low him implicitly amid those perilous 
times, and into the face of dreadful dan- 
gers. 

Some of the Virginia colony were rest- 
less during all the fall, and plotted ways 
to escape to England. No way presented 
itself before the cold of winter came. 
Captain Smith breathed more freely when 
he found the winter snow and ice cutting 
ofif hope of escape. He determined on a 
survey of the Chickahominy river and 
country. Most of the men were intent 
on finding golddust. Some believed that 
by sailing up the James river they could 
find an open passage to the Pacific ocean, 
and thence reach the East Indies. One 
can not read the history of those early 
days of discovery in the western world, 



126 AMERICAN HISTORY. 

and the strange delusions and chimeras 
of their active brains, without discover- 
ing that gold and the way to the Pacific 
was the desire of all adventurous souls. 
To them, the New World was nothing if 
not a gold mine. Fortunes were lost in 
the vain attempt to find greater fortunes 
in gold and oriental luxuries. 

Captain Smith took a barge, manned it 
with six Englishmen and two Indian 
guides, and started up the Chickahominy; 
since rendered classic and memorable in 
two great wars, one for the obtaining of 
independence, and the other for main- 
taining it. Ascending the river until the 
barge grounded in shallow water, Smith 
left four colonists to guard it, while with 
the two others and the guides, in a small 
boat, they ascended still higher. After 
this mode of journeying became imprac- 
ticable, he left the two colonists to guard 
the boat, while he and the guides pro- 
ceeded up the bank of the stream some 
twenty miles further, to where the river 
became a small creek. Hostile Indians 
discovered Smith and attacked him. 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 127 

While the darts and arrows fell thick 
around him, he fought desperately, com- 
pelling the two Indian guides to keep 
between him and the enemy. At every 
discharge of his gun an Indian fell. It 
is said he tied one of the guides to his 
left arm and used him as a shield. At 
last, falling into a moras. Smith was cap- 
tured. Not a sign of fear was seen in the 
captive. He bore all the marks of per- 
fect composure. 

On being brought before the chief and 
his tribe, he excited their wonder with 
his watch and pocket compass. For a 
time they delayed torture of the prisoner, 
but tiring of him, they bound him to a 
tree Just as they were ready to kill him, 
he swung his compass in the air, and with 
many gyrations impressed the Indians 
with the thought that he was performing 
some ceremony that would lay such an 
awful spell upon them as to cause the 
tribe great suffering and lasting injury. 
Moved by this fear he was released from 
the tree, but held still as a captive. Their 
superstitious dread of the white man, 



128 AMERICAN HISTORY. 

whom they scarcely dared to touch, serv- 
ed his purpose well. 

The Indians, making common cause 
against the colony, were planning an at- 
tack upon the feeble fort and town, in- 
tending its complete destruction. In 
Smith's graphic way he described in no 
underwrought manner, the great danger 
in such proceeding. The great cannon, 
their fearful thunder voice and terrible 
execution, were well described Rewrote 
a letter to his friends in the fort, warn- 
ing them of their extreme danger, and 
advised how to proceed for more com- 
plete defense. Some Indians carried the 
letter to the fort. The colonists impressed 
them with what they saw. The fact that 
the letter could talk just like Smith, and 
tell the white men what Smith had told 
them, very greatly impressed the Indi- 
ans. When they returned to the tribe 
their voice was against any attack on the 
fort colonists. 

Captain Smith was still a prisoner, and 
the Indians knew not what to do with 
him. He was taken about to various vil- 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 129 

lages as a kind of extraordinary show, all 
wanting him killed, but none daring to 
kill. They came at last to the Indian vil- 
lage Pamunkay, where Opechancanough 
held court. The chief, dreading Smith, 
gave him to the tender mercies of his 
priests. For three days Smith lay bound 
in the "Long House," a place of judgment, 
and the Indian priests with wild incanta- 
tions and wilder dances, mingled with 
singing and yelling, sought for some sign 
to determine the fate of the prisoner. At 
the end of the long dance the fates said 
the prisoner must die. To complete the 
sentence, it was needful that Powhatan, 
the chief of the chiefs, should sanction 
his death. 

Smith was led to Powhatan's town. The 
old chief was about sixty years of age, 
versed in all the arts of Indian chief craft, 
and ruled with an iron will. "He received 
the prisoner," says Ridpath, "with all the 
rude formalities peculiar to his race. Go- 
ing to the Long House of the village, the 
Emperor, clad in a robe of raccoon skins, 
took his seat on a kind of throne prepar- 



130 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



ed for the occasioD. His two daughters 
sat right and left, while files of warriors 
and women of rank were ranged around 
the hall. The king solemnly reviewed 
the cause and confirmed the sentence of 
death. Two large stones were brought 
into the hall, Smith was dragged forth, 
bound, and his head put into position to 
be crushed with a war club. A stalwart 
painted savage was ordered out of the 
ranks, and stood ready for the bloody 
tragedy. The signal was given, the grim 
executioner raised his bludgeon, and an- 
other moment decided the fate of both 
the illustrious captive and his colony. But 
the peril went by harmless. Matoaka 
(who was afterwards called Pocahontas), 
the eldest daughter of Powhatan, sprang 
from her seat and rushed between the 
warrior's uplifted club and the prostrate 
prisoner. She clasped his head in her 
arms, and held on with the resolution of 
despair until her father, yielding to her 
frantic appeals, ordered Smith to be un- 
bound and lifted up." 

Smith, being thus strangely and ro- 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 131 

manlically rescued, was received by Pow- 
hatan into favor, and remained for some 
time in his household. Gradually he was 
granted liberty. He sought an opportu- 
nity to reach his fort. At last it was 
agreed that he should be wholly free, if 
he would send two cannon and a grind- 
stone back to Orapax, an Indian town. 
"Certain warriors were to accompany 
Smith to the settlement and carry the ar- 
ticles to Powhatan. There should then 
be peace and friendship between the Eng- 
lish and the Eedmen. The journey was 
accordingly begun, the company camping 
at night in the woods, and Smith being in 
constant peril of his life from the uncer- 
tain disposition of the sivages. But the 
colony was reached in safety, the lost 
Captain and his twelve Indian guides 
being received with great gladness. 
Smith's first and chief care was to make 
a proper impression on the minds of the 
savages. He had improved the opportuni- 
ties of his captivity by learning the lan- 
guage of Powhatan's people, and by mak- 
ing himself familiar with their peculiari- 



132 AMERICAN HISTORY. 

ties and weaknesses — an experience of 
vast importance to himself and the col- 
ony. He now ordered the two cannon, 
which he had promised to Powhatan, 
to be brought out and loaded to the muz- 
zle with stones. Then, under pretence 
of teaching the Indians gunnery, he had 
the pieces discharged among the tree tops, 
which were bristling with icicles There 
was a terrible crash, and the savages cow- 
ering with fear and amazement, could not 
be induced to touch thedreadful engine." 
The life of Matoaka, or Pocahontas, is 
worthy of tracing. The tribe believed 
that if her real name was known she 
might be injured, but if unknown, no one 
could do her harm. Either name is beau- 
tiful, but she is best known as Pocahontas. 
When Captain Smith lay with head on 
the block, ready to be slain in the pres- 
ence of her father, what moved her to 
throw herself before the club and plead 
for his life, has never been told. It is 
very probable she never explained it her- 
self. Doubtless, that pity which innocence 
may feel for the suffering, induced her to 



AMERICAN HISTORY. IBo 



the act. Her friendship formed for the 
English never was known to waver. Smith, 
in his narrative, says, Pocahontas "with 
her wild train visited Jamestown as free- 
ly as her father's habitation." 

Pocahontas in 1609 went by night 
through the woods to warn Smith of a 
plot formed by her father to destroy him, 
thereby rescuing the colony. She was in 
1612, because of some home trouble, liv- 
ing in the territory of the Indian Chief, 
Japazaws. Capt. Samuel Argall corrupted 
Japazaws to abduct Pocahontas, and de- 
liver her into his hands, which he did for 
a bribe of "a brass kettle." She was put 
into Lord Delaware's hands, who tried 
to exact a ransom from Powhatan for his 
daughter This the old chief refused to 
give. While on shipboard a captive, be- 
tween her and John Rolfe, an English- 
man, an attachment of heart sprang up. 
Her father and Sir Thos. Dale consenting, 
they were married. Out of this marriage 
there came a peace, continuing many 
years, to the advantage of both English 
and Indian. Pocahontas was baptized by 



134 AMERICAN HISTORY. 

the name of Rebecca, but outside of those 
ceremonies, in which this name was used, 
she went by the name of Pocahontas. 

Accompanying her husband to England . 
in ] 6 16, she was well received and present- 
ed at court. It was easy for the red daugh- 
ter of the forest to fall into civilized and 
polite ways. While in England she met 
once more with Captain Smith, whom she 
supposed dead. "After saluting him she 
turned away her face and hid it in her 
hands, and remained in this position for 
two or three hours. She had been taught 
to believe that he was dead, and there is 
no doubt that her husband was a party 
to the deception, he probably thinking 
she would never marry him while Smith 
was living " 

To Pocahontas and Rolfe was born a 
son, Thos. Rolfe, from whom descended 
the Boling, Randolph and Fleming fami- 
lies of Virginia. 

Rolfe and Pocahontas were preparing 
to embark for America, when she fell sick 
and soon died. Smith survived the dusky 
maiden fifteen years, when a life of ad- 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 135 



venture and peril ended in the city of 
London. Smith's entire life was one of 
romance. It is more wonderful than fic- 
tion. 



CONNECTICUT 

AND HER CHARTER OAK. 



The State of Connecticut is not noted 
tor vast dimensions, towering snowcap- 
ped mountains, fertile plains, and great 
inland seas ; nor has her ground trem- 
bled beneath the tread of great armies 
rushing madly into conflict, nor witness- 
ed any of the great battles of the Re- 
public, where large armies have fought in 
deadly combat to establish principles of 
civil liberty by which all human rights 
are protected against the bitterest ene- 
mies. But Connecticut has been noted 
for the battles of mind against mind, and 
of stern will against stern will, in which 
the grandest principles of civil liberty, 
personal rights, taxation with represen- 
tation and republican government have 
been fought for on bloodless fields. Vic- 
tories ha^e been gained which have 



188 AMERICAN HISIOKV. 



blessed noi only Connecticut, and Amer- 
ica, but the whole world. Her battles and 
victories have lifted mankind percepti- 
bly higher than could have been without 
them. Her schools, churches, mills and 
spindles, and thousands of industries have 
set in motion influences which have 
widened and extended until all the civil- 
ized world has echoed a refrain of praise 
to the sturdy men who so carefully plant- 
ed the colony and earnestly contended 
for the rights of man. 

There is one event of deepest moment 
in Connecticut's early history around 
which all else clusters. It is the time 
when the sturdy Joseph Wadsworth, un- 
der cover of darkness, seized the royal 
charter and hid it in a venerable oak 
tree, and saved the liberties of the peo- 
ple from a cruel oppressor. 

The Dutch from New Netherlands, a 
portion of the present New York and New 
Jersey, explored the territory west of the 
Connecticut river, and laid claim to it. 
But the English claimed it also by virtue 
of a royal charter granted to the Earl of 



AMKKICAN HISIOKV. 13'.» 



Warwick by King James I. in 1620, and 
by the Earl of Warwick to Lord Say and 
Seal, Lord Broke, Sir Richard Saltonstall 
and associates in 1631. The Dutch in 
1633 commenced a settlement at Hart- 
ford, but soon sold oilt to the English 
and gave peaceable possession 

The charter granted to Connecticut 
was so broad and liberal as to make the 
colony in fact an independent govern- 
ment in all respects. It was a Republic 
on a small scale, but destined to grow into 
the most gigantic Republic of the world. 
This charter was greater than he who 
gave it intended, and broader than they 
who received it believed. It prepared for 
claims in western lands, and provided "in 
advance the school fund of Connecticut." 
Itgave to thecoloniststheunqualified pow- 
er of self-government. They could make 
their own laws, elect officers, try cases, in- 
flict punishment without consulting the 
king. "Connecticut," says Bancroft, "was 
independent, except in name." 

The colony started out as a church in- 
stitution, and sought the fullest civil and 



140 AMERICAN IIISIORV. 

religious liberty. It contemplated giving 
to the people all the power of self-gov- 
ernment, which they by vote should del- 
egate to their representatives, which pow- 
er should at the expiration of the tern^ 
of service of officers elect, revert to the 
people to be again delegated by vote ta 
representatives. Thus the people were 
to hold forever the power which was lim- 
ited and given to their representatives. 

In harmony with this royal charter, 
a constitution was formed, receiving at 
times such alterations as seemed advan- 
tageous to the people of the colony, by 
which the legislative, judicial and execu- 
tive departments of government were 
formed, and powers defined. This wa& 
ratified by the general vote of the people 
January 14, 1639. This was "the first ex- 
ample in history of a written constitution 
organizing a government and defining its 
powers," It declared that "the Word of 
Grod requires human governments, and 
that the object of such governments is to 
maintain and preserve the moral and civil 
welfare of the people." It provided that 



AMKKUAN HlSl-ORV. 141 



all the offices should "be filled by persons 
to be appointed by and to derive their 
power from the people." It gave the 
elective franchise to all freemen, and all 
elections were by ballot. Any man could 
become a freeman by uniting with the 
church and taking an oath of allegiance 
to the State. In the constitution there 
was no allusion to, or recognition of, any 
"higher human power than the people." 
There was no recognition of "English king 
or foreign power." This constitution was 
foamed in a barn for want of a legislative 
hall, and the "Bible was adopted as the 
constitution of the State." 

A government could not be more free 
and independent than was Connecticut 
under the charter of James^the I. By 
the votes of the people, Mr. Eaton was 
elected Governor for twenty years in suc- 
cession. Under the charter and consti- 
tution Connecticut had a large part of a 
century of tranquility and unbounded 
prosperity. The government went into 
"honest and upright hands," says Ban- 
<;roft ; "the little strifes of rivalry never 



142 AMKRK A.N lll^loRN. 

became heated ; the magistrates were 
sometimes persons of no ordinary endow- 
ments; but though gifts of learning and 
genius were valued, the State was con- 
tent with virtue and single-mindedness; 
and the public welfare never suffered 
at the hands of plain men. * * * Ed- 
ucation was cherished to the highest de- 
gree of refinement, alike in its application 
to moral duties, and to the mysterious 
questions on the nature of God, of liberty, 
and of the soul. A hardy race multiplied 
along the alluvion of the streams, and sub- 
dued the more rocky and less inviting 
fields; its population for a century 
doubled once in twenty years, in spite of 
considerable emigration ; and if, as has 
often been said, the ratio of the increase 
of population is the surest criterion of 
public happiness, Connecticut was long 
the happiest state in the world. Religion 
united with the pursuits of agriculture, 
to give the land the aspect of salu- 
brity. The domestic wars were the 
discussion of knotty points in theology ; 
the concerns of the parish, the merits oi 



the minister, were the weightiest afifairs, 
and a church reproof the heaviest ca- 
lamity. The strifes of the parent country, 
though they sometimes occasioned a levy 
among the sons of the husbandmen, yet 
never brought an enemy within their 
borders: tranquility was within their 
gates, and the peace of God within their 
hearts. No fears of midnight ruffians 
could disturb the sweetness of slumber ; 
the best house required no fastening but 
a latch, lifted by a string ; bolts and locks 
were unknown." 

There came a time of peril to this in- 
dependent colony, this infant Republic. 
The troubles in England, and the envy of 
surrounding colonies served to put some 
of the rights of the colony in jeopardy. 
Unkind and false reports had been circu- 
lated in England charging Connecticut 
with meditating treason against the moth- 
er country, and desiring to be in all re- 
spects free. The charter of Connecticut 
was thus in peril. On the restoration of 
^'harles to the throne of England, the 
authorities of Connecticut made haste 



144 A.MFRICAN HISTORY 



to recognize his rightful place on the 
throne. The scholarly Winthrop, the 
younger, one of the truest men ever 
found in legislative halls, was sent to Eng- 
land as an ambassador with a new char- 
ter like unto the first willi a few addition- 
al grants. This polished man of politics 
was able to gain an audience of the King, 
and in a most artful but honest way in- 
duce him to sign the new charter, and 
affix to it the great seal of England. 

Of this John Wintrop, the younger, to 
whom Connecticut owes so much, it may 
not be amiss to speak. He was born in 
Groton, England, February 12, 1606. and 
died at Boston, Massachusetts, April 5, 1676, 
just a century before the culmination of 
his labors in the Declaration of American 
Independence. ' In the younger Win- 
throp," says Bancroft, "the qualities of 
human excellence were mingled in such 
happy proportions that, while he always 
wore an air of contentment, no enter- 
prise in which he engaged seemed too 
lofty for his powers. Even as a child he 
had been the pride of his father's house ; 



AMF.RH'AN HISTOm. 14") 

he had received the best instruction which 
Cambridge and Dublin could afford, and 
had perfected his education by visiting, 
in part at least, in the public service, not 
Holland and France only, in the days of 
Prince Maurice and Richelieu, but Ven- 
ice and Constantinople. From boyhood 
his manners had been spotless, and the 
purity of his soul added luster and beau- 
ty to the gifts of nature and industry; as 
he traveled through Europe he sought 
the society of men eminent for learning. 
Returning to England in the bloom of 
life, with every promise of preferment 
which genius, gentleness of temper, and in- 
fluence at court could inspire, he prepar- 
ed to follow his father to the New World. 
* * * Himselfsinglehanded and with- 
out wealth, engaged in the enterprise of 
planting Connecticut. Care for posterity 
seemed the motive to his actions. His 
vast and elevated mind had, moreover, 
that largeness that he respected learning, 
and virtue, and genius, in whatever sect 
they might be found. No narrow bigotry 
limited his affections or esteem, and when 



14<) AMERICAN HI.ST( 



Quakers had become objects of persecu- 
tion, he was earnest and unremitting in 
argument and entreaty to prevent the 
effusion of blood. Master over his own 
mind, be never regretted the brilliant 
prospects he had resigned, nor complain- 
ed of the comparative solitude of New 
London ; a large library furnished em- 
ployment to his mind ; the study of na- 
ture according to the principles of the 
Philosophy of Bacon was his delight, 
for "he had a gift in understanding and 
art; and his home was endeared by a 
happy marriage and many sweet chil- 
dren. His knowledge of human nature 
was as remarkable as his virtues. He nev- 
er attempted impracticable things, but 
understanding the springs of action and 
the principles that control affairs, he 
calmly and noiselessly succeeded in all 
that he undertook." 

Having obtained from the restored 
Charles the new charter, joyfully Win- 
throp returned to his colony to foster 
the new and enlarged germ of free gov- 
ernment in the New World, which in 



AMl-lRUAN IlIM 



14' 



1776 culminated in the most stupendous 
revolution of the centuries — a revolution 
which started the Xew and startled the 
Old World. 

The colony of Connecticut moved on 
in a splendid career under self govern- 
ment, with remarkable prosperity in every 
department. The people were happy, con- 
tented and prosperous. Riches were ac- 
cumulating on every hand. Farms were 
cleared up, villages planted, public build- 
ings erected ; shipping multiplied until 
Connecticut seemed destined to become 
the wealthiest, most cultured and strong- 
est colony of the New World. Rumors 
of the designs of the Governor of New 
York to capture Connecticut and add it 
to his domain were heard. Nothing oc- 
curred, however, until 1675, when Sir 
Edmund Andros entered the mouth of 
Connecticut river and demanded the 
surrender of the colony to him. The 
sturdy Yankees resisted nobly and taught 
the Sir Knight that it was better to be a 
live Governor in New York than a dead 
Colonel in Connecticut. 



I4S AiMERlCAN HISTOKN. 



In 1686 Andros was appointed by the 
Crown of England Governor over New 
England, and attempted to exercise his 
authority over all the colonies, including 
free Connecticut. He ordered an assem- 
bly at Hartford, and demanded the im- 
mediate and unconditional surrender of 
the charter of Charles. "The tradition 
is that Governor Treat strongly repre- 
sented the great expense and hardships 
of the colonists in planting the country, 
the blood and treasure which they had 
expended in defending it, both against 
the savages and foreigners, and that it 
was like giving up his life now to surren- 
der the patent and privileges so dearly 
bought and so long enjoyed. The impor- 
tant affair was debated and kept in sus- 
pense until the evening when the charter 
was brought and laid upon the table 
where the Assembly were sitting. By 
this time great numbers of people were 
assembled, and men sufficiently bold to 
enterprise whatever might be necessary 
or expedient. The lights were instantly 
extinguished, and one Captain Wads- 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 149 

worth of Hartford, in the most silent and 
secret manner, carried off the charter, 
and secreted it in a hollow tree fronting 
the house of Hon. Samuel Wylly, then 
one of the magistrates of the colony. The 
candles were officiously relighted, but the 
patent was gone, and no discovery could 
be made of it, or the person who carried 
it away," (Connecticut Hist. Collections, 
page 44.) By this means the liberties of 
Connecticut were preserved, and kings 
taught the lesson that freemen knew how 
to take care of their rights. 

The Charter Oak wherein this great and 
valuable document was hid, stood in the 
southern part of Hartford. It became 
hollow by age. The cavity was so large 
that "twenty-seven full grown men stood 
up in it together." It measured when it 
fell thirty-three feet in circumference at 
the base. For years this tree was a rally- 
ing point for freedom. As the years in- 
creased, the people loving freedom all 
but venerated the tree and the graund it 
covered by its shade, and came from far 
and near to drink in a new inspiration 



150 AMKRICAN HIS'JORV. 

for liberty and native land. The tree 
was blown down August 21, 1856. As 
soon as it was known that the Charter 
Oak had fallen arrangements were made 
to commemmorate its fall. At noon a 
dirge was played by Colt's armory band. 
As the notes of the dead march in Saul 
were floating out upon the afternoon air, 
followed by 'Home, Sweet Home," and 
"Hail Columbia," "many a manly eye 
was moistened" with the dews of deep 
emotion. At sundown the city bells of 
Hartford tolled in sad, slow tones, telling 
of real sorrow, for a friend was gone. 
What memories cluster around the Char- 
ter Oak of old Connecticut! 



ROGER WILLIAMS, 

The Apostle of Suffrage. 



When men have once exercised the 
right of the elective franchise, it is an 
exceedingly difficult task to restrain 
the right and limit its privileges, or 
to deprive those who have once exer- 
cised it, of the right to vote altogether. 
The right of suffrage borders upon the 
dignity of sovereignty. Power is a grand 
possession, and to exercise it is one of the 
sweetest privileges of life. Few are ever 
willing to voluntarily resign power into 
the hands of others. Even the aged and 
helpless will put forth all remaining 
strength to keep up the delusion of exer- 
cising power, even when the reins have 
really shipped from their hands. On the 
soil of our beautiful America has been 
fought one of the most desperate moral 



152 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



battles, the battle of suffrage, that has 
been fought within the last ten centuries. 
While it was bloodless, it was filled with 
fiuffericg pain, privation, tears and heart- 
aches. The sun of suffrage and human 
rights rose on a morning sky of tribula- 
tion and threatening. It passed to the 
zenith with clouds breaking away, and 
rays of light here and there until it came 
to the bright glory of a noonday, never 
to fade into twilight, or sink into dark- 
ness and night. 

The smallest state in the union is 
Rhode Island, sometimes derisively called 
"Little Rhody." While it is small geo- 
graphically and in lineal character, it is 
nevertheless, a place where men of giant 
minds have lived, and fought for truth 
and great principles, such as never once 
entered the minds of kings, or if entering 
were banished as the enemies of king- 
craft. It has a large extent of sea coast in 
consequence of its numerous inlets, in- 
dentations of the shore line, beautiful 
bays and sounds, and the mouth of sev- 
eral rivers whose fresh and sweet waters 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 153 



fall into and mingle with the great salt 
sea. 

The founder of this little state of great 
achievements was R3ger Williams, a man 
whose character, habits and tastes, attain- 
ments, opinions and courage may well be 
studied by patriot, philanthropist, politi- 
cal economist, and christian, and whose 
purity of life and evenness of temper 
may ever form a pattern for successful 
imitation. The life of Roger WilUiams 
for forty-eight years, or from 1635 to 1683 
is really the history of his colony long 
known an Rhode Island. Not an event 
transpired, or an advance movement in 
commercial or political life, or a change 
in the social life and relation of the peo- 
ple, but Roger Williams was the prime 
mover. Her laws and theology were 
moulded by his great mind. His will 
bent opposing forces to his thought. He 
ruled, not with a rod of iron, but in ar- 
gument and love. The impress of his 
own great mind, and the warmth and fer- 
vor of his heart were indelibly stamped 
on his people. In legislative halls, courts 



164 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



of justice, in executive counsel, and 
around the warm firesides of the sturdy 
citizens of his favorite land, his strong, 
clearly spoken, atd well defined political 
and moral principles were seen and read 
of men, Roger Williams met men to im- 
press them and mould them to his no- 
tions. It will be profitable to study this 
great man as a political economist and 
the apostle of suffrage. 

Roger Williams was a native of Wales, 
born in 1599; his early life is shrouded in 
mystery, neither he nor his friends have 
left anything definite as to his early life 
and its surroundings. Very early young 
Roger manifested the possession of 
powers not of common order. From the 
fact that he took notes of sermons when 
young, and tha speeches of great political 
orators, it is to be presumed that his 
tastes ran in that direction. On going to 
London, where he found a great field for 
earnest work, and where he was to de- 
velop the notions already showing them- 
selves, his notes soon attracted attention. 
It was not long before this adventurous 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 155 



Welsh youth attracted the attention of 
Sir Edward Cooke, who became his pa- 
tron and lifelong friend. By him young 
Roger was sent to Charterhouse school, 
July 25, 1621, where, when twenty-two 
years of age, he was elected a scholar. 
Every opportvnity was improved for 
study, and he became sof skilled as to en- 
ter Pembroke College, Cambridge Uni- 
versity, being matriculated as a pensioner 
July 7, 1625. Here he ranged through 
philosopy, law and theology, becoming 
proficient in all, but excelling in theology, 
graduating in January, 1627. 

For the next three years the life of 
Williams is uncertain. Some facts point 
to his being a clergyman in the Church 
of England, while some suppose he tried 
his genius at the law. One thing is pretty 
sure, hcmarried. His ^fary accompanied 
him in his embarkation to Amerca, where 
they landed at, or near Boston, Feb. 5, 
1631. 

On the new soil, catching the inspira- 
tion of a great country, he became one of 
the most radical Puritans of all the New 



156 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



England colonies. The notion born in 
his own hardy Wales and nurtured in his 
studies, here found a grand place for 
complete development. Nor did he hes- 
itate to attack all notions having a shade 
of difference from his own, and in a clear 
logical manner drove them from their 
position. 

An opportunity soon presented itself 
in the colony for witnessing to his opin- 
ions and testing his metal. A Universal 
sufiFrage had existed in the Plymouth 
Colony up to 1631, or a period often years. 
"At a session of the general court of 
the colony," held this year a law was 
enacted "restricting the sight of suf- 
frage." The new act restricted the right 
to those who were "members of the 
church." This limited the number who 
voted for governor, deputy governor and 
assistant counsellors to a small minority 
of the population, whereas before, all 
men having reached majority were legal 
voters. "Nearly three-fourths of the peo- 
ple were excluded from exercising the 
right of freemen. Taxes were levied for 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 157 



the support of the gospel; oaths of obed- 
ience to the magistrates were required; 
attendance on public worship was en- 
forced by law, none but church members 
were eligible to offices of trust." 

Now was the time when the "manly 
voice" and sturdy will of Roger Williams 
was moved to action. He epoke plain 
words against such an attempt to restrict 
the rights of freemen. His philipics 
against such injustice were not always 
measured by worldly prudence, but re- 
sounded with strong common sense, and 
the best principles of human rights. In 
connection with his strong argument for 
universal suffrage, he was "the first in 
America or in Europe, to proclaim the 
full gospel of religious toleration," Stand- 
ing amidst the sturdy Puritans, he de- 
clared "that the conscience of man may 
in no wise be bound by the authority of 
the magistrates; that civil government 
has only to do with civil matters — such 
as the collection of taxes, the restraint 
and punishment of crime, and the pro- 



158 AMERICAN HISTORY 



tection of all men in the enjoyment of 
equal rights." 

While Williams was unable at the time 
to stem the current and turn back its 
flow, he yet so sewed seeds of truth 
among the Puritans, and unfolded doc- 
trines of new import as to bring about, 
when he had gone to found his colony, a 
complete change in public sentiment, and 
in government. 

At Salem, when Roger Williams be- 
came the assistant pastor of Skelton, the 
general court^ remonstrated against his 
settlement there. They complained that 
he had refused "to join with the congre- 
gation at Boston, because they could not 
make a public declaration of their re- 
pentance for having communion with the 
churches of England while they lived 
there." Williams objected to the Eng- 
lish Church, because the pious and world- 
ly men were mingled in its communion 
and government promiscuously. He de- 
manded absolute separation. By him the 
line of demarkation was rigidly drawn 
between the good and the bad. 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 159 



The court charged Williams with declar- 
ing that "the magistrates might not pan- 
ish a breach of the Sabbath, nor any other 
offense, as it was breach of the first ta 
ble." Williams argued ihat in all mat- 
ters of the first table of the law, as they 
were questions of conscience, the law 
should not have cognizince. He held 
that all the disaffections of men, and the 
evils of government, and ill feeling of the 
people grew out of a disregard of the 
principle of equal and universal suffrage. 
So strongly did he urge his notions, and 
so unable was the court to answer him, 
that they took measures against him and 
forced him to leave Salem before a year 
had passed. 

To Plymouth this sturdy Puritan went, 
to become the assistant of the pastor, 
Robert Smith. Here for two years, thi^ 
strong thinker and great debater ceased 
not to urge his doctrines. With foresight 
of what might happen, Williams made 
friends with some Indians and learned 
their language. He believed that the 
whites had no right to occupy the lands 



160 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



of the Indians without a fair purchase of 
them, even though the crown of England 
had granted them to the colonists by 
loyal charter. In this he occupied the 
same ground as William Penn. In 1634, 
Williams published his remarkable paper 
in which was the declaration "that grants 
of land, though given by the King of 
England, were invalid until the natives 
were justly recompensed." This became 
a tangible offense. All before had been 
mere public statement. Now, having 
written a book, it became a crime. The 
court was indignant, magistrates were in- 
censed. The Governor was angry. Some 
of the people joined them, but others co- 
incided with his views. The storm raised 
by this printed declaration became so 
great that Williams agreed that it should 
be publicly burned, not because he re- 
canted, but to preserve the general 
peace. 

This truce was of short duration. Soon 
the pent up fires of indignation within 
his soul burst all bounds, and he again in 
public addresses arraigned the magistrates 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 161 



for what he conceived direlections from 
duty. His invectives were not always 
measured by common prudence. They 
were burning, scathing, fierce, and gen- 
erally unanswerable. When arrested and 
brought to angwer for these strange doc- 
trines, Williams "crowned his offc-nses 
by telling the court that a test of church 
membership in a voter, or a public offi- 
cer, was as ridiculous as the seleciion of 
a doctor of physics, or pilot of a ship, on 
account of his skill in theology." The 
storm of indignation burst, and Williams 
was condemned for heresy, and banished 
from the colony. This was in the dead 
of winter, and the magistrates consider 
ately allowed him to remain until spring. 
But the indomitable man could not re- 
main quiet. He talked; his doctrines 
spread; it was noised about that he con- 
templated founding a colony near by, 
wherein his principles should be embod- 
ied. A general alarm spread; it was de- 
cided to capture Williams and send him 
to England immediately. A vessel was 
made ready, but when the officers went 



162 AMERICAN HISTORY, 



to seize Williams, he had gone out into 
the wilderness never to return. This po. 
litical reformer left family and home, and 
for fourteen weeks in midwinter traveled 
through forests, and over hills and val 
leys, "not knowing what bread or bed did 
mean," until at last he came to the shores 
of the Narragansett. 

The Indians knew how manfully Wil- 
liams had defended their rights against 
the white men. Their dusky hearts were 
open to receive him. In the country, and 
by the Wampanoags he was welcomed. 
He found an asylum with Massasoit at 
Pokanoket. "On the left bank of the 
Blackstone river, near the head of Narra- 
gansett bay, a resting place was at last 
found; the exile pitched his tent, and 
with the opening of spring planted a 
field, and built the first house in the vil- 
lage of Seekout." Not long was he per- 
mitted to remain in peace; his tent was 
still on forbidden ground, and in the ter- 
ritory of the Plymouth colony. He re- 
solved to move; taking five companions 
he moved down the stream in a canoe to 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 163 



the bay, and across to the west shore, 
where he knew he was entirely beyond 
Plymouth territory. He purchased from 
Canonicus, chief of the Narragansetts, a 
suitable tract of land, and in June, 1636, 
the City of Providence was laid out. 
Roger Williams now had an opportunity 
to work out his problems of political econ- 
omy and religion in his new colony. "I 
have made covenant of peaceable neigh- 
borhood with all the eachems and natives 
roundabout us," said Williams, "and hav- 
ing of a sense of God's merciful provi- 
dence unto me in my distress, called the 
place Providence, I desired it might be 
for a shelter for persons distressed for 
conscience." Conscience and a pure de- 
mocracy were his controlling thoughts, 
and the fundamental principles of his 
colony. Consequently, any one who de- 
sired to dwell in Providence, was requir- 
ed to sign an agreement as follows : "We, 
whose names are hereunder, desirous to 
inhabit in the town of Providence, do 
promise to subject ourselves, in action or 
passion, obedience to all such orders or 



164 AMERICAN HISTORY. 

agreements as shall be made for public 
good of the body, in an orderly way, by 
the major consent of the present inhabi- 
tants, masters of families, incorporated 
together in a town fellowship, and others 
whom they shall admit unto the same, 
only in civil things ", 

Much that is exceedingly interesting in 
the life of Roger Williams, must be omit- 
ted. The colony of Rhode Island when 
fully founded was a pure democracy, 
wherein all public business was transact- 
ed at the public town meetings, to which 
everybody was invited. It was desirable 
that the fullest license should be given to 
discussions of the subjects of deepest in- 
terest to the colony. No one was restrict- 
ed in speech or conscience. When the 
vote was taken and a law enacted, the 
minority never failed to acquiesce in the 
law. Athens or Sparta in their palmiest 
days, were never more democratic than 
little Rhode Island under the reign of 
conscience and suffrage, in the leadership 
of Roger Williams. 

Up to 1643 the colony had no charter 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 165 



from the English crown. In that year 
Roger Williams was sent to England to 
procure the coveted document. This he 
succeeded in doing, confirming most of 
his peculiar notions. Under this charter 
the colony acted until 1G51, when new 
difficulties arose, requiring some modifi- 
cations. Again Williams was sent to 
England, when he again procured a char- 
ter and royal favor. Returning to Rhode 
Island he was for two and a half years 
chosen the president of the colony. 

The mental characteristics of Roger 
Williams, and the times in which he lived, 
may be known from the titles of his books. 
His ' Key Into the Languages of Amer- 
ica," was a clear treatise on the manners, 
habits, laws and religion of the Indian 
tribes. Few had better opportunities 
to study these. He often visited the wig- 
wams and slept in the villages, and ate 
with the red men. He was their friend 
and counselor ; they reverenced him as 
an oracle. His strong mind easily grasp- 
ed their doctrines and crude philosophy. 
While in England he published a book 



166 AMERICAN HISTORY. 



bearing the title "Experiments of Spirit- 
ual Life and Health, and their Preserva- 
tion," Of this book he said: "It was writ- 
ten in the thickest of the native Indians 
of America, in their own wild houses, and 
by their barbarous fires," 

For some reason he conceived a dislike 
for the doctrines of Rev. Mr. Cotton, and 
to show the falsity of his theories, Wil- 
liams published a book bearing the title, 
"The Bloody Tenent yet More Bloody by 
Mr. Cotton's Endeavor to Wash it White 
in the Blood of the Lamb." Another of 
hisstory books was entitled, "The Bloody 
Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Con- 
science, Discussed in a Conference Be- 
tween Truth and Peace." The Plymouth 
magistrates come in for a good share of 
castigation in this book. 

Williams was versed in the English, 
Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French and Dutch 
languages. It was the constant habit of 
this staunch reformer when persecuted 
the severest, and taunted by foes the bit- 
terest, to turn to these old tongues and 
revel in their hidden treasures for conso- 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 16' 



lation and peace. Here his mind was 
drawn away from retort and bitter satire 
and hateful scorn of men, to communion 
with loftier minds and more genial souls. 
In 1672 he met three of the most noted 
Quaker preachers, and held a public de- 
bate with them at Newport. They were 
not in any sense in harmony with the no- 
tions of Williams, and received from him 
some severe thrusts. But he refused to 
persecute them. They might, as the teach- 
ers of the dogmas of George Fox live, but 
he could not encourage them. Soon after 
the public debate Williams published a 
book bearing the title, "George Fox Dig- 
ged out of His Burrows." 

All that is great and earthly must die. 
So Roger Williams in 1683, when eighty- 
four years of age, being full of years, after 
a stormy life of dissension, controversy 
and patient endurance of persecution, fell, 
in death. A grateful people carried him 
to his family burying-ground, near the 
spot where he first landed, and where he 
laid out and founded the city of Provi- 
dence. 



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